Conservatives must win over the ethnic- minority vote

The House of Commons is in the midst of a staccato of last-gasp votes and domino resignations, and it is hard to think about next week, let alone the future. But unless they lift their gaze beyond the short term, in a decade’s time Tories will wake up to find themselves out of power, with the electoral fundamentals stacked against them.

It’s often said that young people cost Theresa May her majority in June last year . Yet the lack of Conservative support among ethnic minorities is potentially an even bigger problem.

For years, being non-white has been the single biggest indicator of not voting Conservative and 2017 was no exception: the party failed to win even a fifth of ethnic-minority votes.

Fewer than a quarter of ethnic-minority voters currently say the Tory party is “for people like me”, according to an exclusive poll for the think-tank Onward. In fact, support for the party is more equivocal and rejection more unwavering than pollsters note for other parties.

If there was a time when these facts didn’t move elections, it will soon be over. Britain is becoming more diverse with every generation: a fifth of under 24-year-olds are now from black or ethnic-minority heritage, compared to just five per cent for over 65s.

Unless it does better among ethnic- minority voters, the Conservatives will have to gain two per cent more white voters in the next decade just to stand still, because the proportion of ethnic- minority voters is increasing.

Without such gains, the party will lose 28 seats automatically and many other constituencies will be unwinnable.

A turnaround is possible, and it must start here in London. More than two-fifths of Londoners are black or from an ethnic minority. It is impossible for the Tory candidate to receive the keys to City Hall in 2020 without winning a large share of this support.

Among white voters, 70 per cent of those who consider voting Conservative go on to do so, while ethnic-minority voters are half as likely to actually vote for the party. In other words, there’s a big untapped pool of people teetering on the edge of voting Conservative. But voting habits are not set in stone. In fact, between 2005 and 2010 the Conservatives doubled their share of black and Asian votes, and it rose from 16 per cent to 23 per cent between 2010 and 2015.

However, moving the dial will require a very different campaign, and the cultural, religious and community differences between groups must be better understood.

At the same time, Tories would do well to speak in terms of values — like hard work, community, enterprise and family — which are shared by Conservatives and ethnic minorities alike.

It would never be right for the party of one-nation politics to neglect Britain’s black and ethnic-minority communities. Today, it would not be politically sustainable either.

• Will Tanner and James Kanagasooriam are involved with the Conservative think-tank Onward