Tag: Sharp Corporation

“A larger share of BME voters supported Brexit than have ever voted for the Conservative party, although there are now differences in support among different ethnic minority groups,” said Omar Khan, the director of Runnymede. “If Theresa May had held on to the diverse seats won by David Cameron in 2010 she would have an outright majority.” The research by Runnymede estimated that around 1 in 10 of the registered voters at the 2017 election were from a minority background, the equivalent of 4.8 million people and an increase of 10% since 2010. One in five Labour voters were from ethnic minorities compared with one in 20 voters for Conservative candidates, and Muslim support for Labour rose from 74% to 87% between 2015 and 2017, according to Runnymede’s analysis of Understanding Society, an official household longitudinal study that allows researchers to look at how voting patterns have changed. The proportion of the minority ethnic vote that went to Labour was in line with opinion polling conducted after the election. “In 2017 we went backwards,” said Binita Mehta-Parmar, a leading Conservative party campaigner, speaking at the launch of the Runnymede research in Westminster. Britain’s BME population is becoming increasingly critical. Ethnic minority communities are dispersing to towns, suburbs and coasts. The Conservatives will need to take parliamentary seats we have ignored for decades.” Nicole Martin of the University of Manchester, who authored the Runnymede report, said approximately a third of BME voters backed Brexit, with British Indians and African-Caribbean people most likely to vote to leave the European Union. Seema Malhotra, the Labour MP for Feltham and Heston in west London, which is 45% white and 41% Asian, said there was a feeling that Brexit would allow greater Commonwealth immigration. It is also a story of aspiration and there is an issue about how we respond to that.