THE POLITICS OF IMMIGRATION

Whether Labour maintains its slimmer lead or the Conservatives
erode it further, or indeed other parties compete for these votes, will
depend on what the parties do to earn the support of ethnic minority
voters.
The fall in party allegiance is at least in part a product of economic,
educational and cultural integration into the norms of a more sceptical
democracy. It gives ethnic minority voters more electoral power if
several parties are competing actively for their votes. While there is
increasing awareness that the days of an ethnic minority bloc vote are
long gone, rather little detail is known. There has been a lot of focus on
the diverging patterns of Asian and black voters, or Hindus and Muslims,
but considerably less is known about how other factors - region and place,
levels of education and whether voters are employed in the public or
private sectors - may prove just as significant. Ethnic minority voters are,
on average, much younger, but little is known about the generational shifts
between minority communities.
Jeremy Corbyn’s party may offer a more vocal anti-racist and proequality
argument, which may resonate and reconnect with those who
feel that the party has slipped into seeing ethnic minorities as a ‘core vote’
that can be taken for granted. The new leader’s ambition to expand the
electorate by appealing to non-voters should also pay attention to underregistration
of ethnic minority voters, as well as among young people more
generally, though the party will reap an electoral benefit only if this has an
impact outside its inner city strongholds into marginal seats held by the
Conservatives.
There is also a very significant opportunity for the Conservative
party to seal the deal with its first time ethnic minority voters. The party of
George Osborne and Sajid Javid may well appeal more strongly to different
non-white voters than Jeremy Corbyn. If educationally and economically
successful ethnic minority voters believe that the Labour party has
positioned itself almost entirely on the side of protecting the underdog,
those who do not identify as themselves as being in need of that support
may follow the C2 voters of the Thatcher era in seeing a switch of political
allegiances as a ‘trading up’ part of upward mobility in British society.
The Survation findings offer clear evidence that ethnic minorities do
think more positively about immigration than most voters. There are some
migration sceptics from ethnic minorities but most non-white Britons think
very differently about immigration than the most ‘left behind’ voters who
hold strong cultural as well as economic fears about immigration.
But the research also casts doubt on the idea that ethnic minority
voters have views that are incompatible with those of other citizens,
especially the ‘anxious middle’ who recognise both the pressures and
benefits of immigration to Britain. There is little evidence to suggest that
politicians would risk losing ethnic minority support if they respond to
public anxieties about immigration with constructive ideas about managing
the pressures and benefits of immigration to Britain. There is little evidence
to suggest that politicians would risk losing ethnic minority support if they
respond to public anxieties about immigration with constructive ideas.
40 British Future / The Politics of Immigration