Operation Black Vote says Labour faces challenge to hang on to its traditionally solid support among community

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

Labour is fighting to halt a slide in its traditionally rock-solid minority ethnic vote which threatens to cost it even more seats, a study released on Monday finds.

Operation Black Vote says 45 of the 50 most marginal seats have a minority ethnic population bigger than the majority of the winning party.

The survey by the non-partisan OBV says the minority ethnic vote could determine if Theresa May gets a landslide or Labour avoids a wipeout on 8 June.

Forty-one of the constituencies Jeremy Corbyn’s party holds rely on minority ethnic support.

In the 2015 election the Conservatives increased their share of the minority ethnic vote, which helped them to win a surprise majority.

The minority ethnic vote had traditionally gone overwhelmingly for Labour, but in 2015 a big push by the Conservatives saw that figure change, with Ed Miliband’s party getting 68% compared to over 80% in previous elections.

For the 2017 election, both main parties’ manifestos make promises specifically designed to attract minority ethnic voters, as the battle for that section of the British electorate intensifies.

The importance of the vote has grown as ethnic minorities have moved in increasing numbers out of inner-city areas and into more suburban areas and smaller towns.

The OBV study says: “Black minority ethnic voters are increasingly moving out of the inner cities – areas with high concentrations of BME residents – and into more marginal and less diverse election battlegrounds.

“There is no doubt that the challenge for Labour is to stem the flow of BME votes to the Conservatives. The key to this will be to hold BME support in the small towns, especially the marginal swing seats, rather than concentrating effort in their inner city heartlands.”

Keith Vaz, chair of Labour’s minority ethnic taskforce, said the party had selected a record 58 minority ethnic candidates.

Vaz said the Tory advance had been halted and its tough rhetoric and promises to clamp down on immigration were sending minority ethnic voters back to Labour: “In 2015 the Conservatives worked extraordinarily hard to get the ethnic minority vote. Theresa May does not have the same impact because of her immigration policies, especially her student immigration policies.”

The stakes are high for Labour. OBV said: “We found 41 Labour-held seats where Jeremy Corbyn’s party desperately need to hold BME support to retain the seat. The BME electorate was larger than the majority in 34 of those seats.

Fourteen of these are in the Midlands – mainly in Birmingham – and 15 are in the north, including areas that voted for Brexit. Just 14 of those seats are in London, where the BME vote has historically been strongest and most resilient for Labour.

Constituencies held by Labour where the minority ethnic vote is bigger than their majority, and the Conservatives are their main challenger, include Ealing Central and Acton; Brentford and Isleworth; Halifax; and Ilford North.

Among seats where the size of the minority ethnic vote is larger than that of the sitting MP are Conservative-held Derby North, Bury North, Thurrock, and Bedford. In all those Labour came second in the 2015 general election.

“The Tories could potentially lose up to 34 seats where the BME vote is larger than the majority of the sitting MP,” the OBV study said.

It continues: “One-third of these seats are in the south, with seven in the north. The party are defending six seats in London.”

The Tory manifesto says May’s first act as PM was ordering an “unprecedented audit of racial disparity across public services”. It also offers promises specifically targeting minority ethnic voters including a new law on stop-and-search if the police do not show improvements in using it more against black people, and putting pressure on companies to close the racial pay gap.

Labour also makes promises on both of those issues and in its manifesto includes a promise to lure Sikh voters by pledging an independent investigation into any British collusion in the 1984 storming of the Sikh Golden Temple in Amritsar.

OBV wants to boost black and minority ethnic voter turnout, which has been lower than that for white Britons. Voter registration for the general election on 8 June ends on Monday.

Simon Wooley of OBV said: “Every leader needs the black vote in these critical seats: May to win big, Corbyn to save face, and [Tim] Farron is courting the black vote to resurrect his party knowing that a big majority – 75% – voted to remain.”

Omar Khan of racial equality thinktank Runnymede said: “In the past, issues such as employment and the economy have been at the top of BME voters’ priorities. We expect this to continue in 2017, and that is perhaps why all three [major] parties – for the first time – explicitly mention their intent to reduce racial inequalities in the labour market.”