Behtari through diversity

Published May 12, 2015
Labour Party’s Naz Shah, who beat Respect party’s George Galloway in Bradford West in the May 7 British election.
Labour Party’s Naz Shah, who beat Respect party’s George Galloway in Bradford West in the May 7 British election.

A few days before the British election took place on May 7, I asked my fruit vendor in south London — who originally hails from Kasur — whether he planned to vote. “Yes, definitely,” he responded. “My wife makes me do it — she thinks voting will bring behtari.” He then went on to complain about high levels of unemployment in the UK, and said the party that could create jobs had his support. In a coy twist, and quite out of character for a man who otherwise relishes the opportunity for a political chat, he refused to tell me which party would get his vote.

The fruit vendor’s attitude towards voting largely reflects that of ethnic minorities in Britain, known in British political parlance as black and minority ethnic (BME) voters, which includes first- and second-generation immigrants from South Asia as well as members of the Commonwealth resident in the UK. In last week’s election, a quarter of a million first-time voters were from the BME category, and their support was seen as key in an election that was meant to be too close to call.

Take a look: View from abroad: An electoral earthquake in UK

BME voters do go to the polls even though many of them believe the British political system has not treated them fairly, and despite right-wing suspicions that they do not value democracy. They do not, however, vote as a bloc or on the basis of particular BME agendas: there is no ideological stance or foreign policy that can win the majority of BME votes. In fact, several studies published in recent years show that BME voters cast their ballots on the basis of the same issues that drive majority votes: unemployment and the state of the economy.

It is also not a guarantee that BME voters prefer to vote for BME candidates, though parties increasingly nominate BME candidates in the hopes of bolstering their credentials and attracting new voters, primarily young, urban voters from immigrant backgrounds. For example, the Conservative Party had the largest number of candidates from minority backgrounds — 10 per cent of the total — even though, or perhaps because, BME voters have historically supported the Labour Party in larger numbers.

That might help explain why an election that was largely devoid of foreign policy concerns, and one in which political parties were fairly uniformly hostile to the idea of immigration, ended up with a more diverse parliament than ever before in British history. There will be a record-breaking number of women in the new parliament — a high of 29 per cent, up from 22 per cent in 2010. More interestingly, there will be the highest-ever number of BME representatives: 42 MPs, or six per cent of the parliament, up from 4.2 per cent in 2010.

The Pakistani diaspora has been particularly excited to see 10 people of Pakistani origin (most of them women) become MPs. While these MPs have likely been elected on the basis of mainstream issues, one hopes that their inclusion in parliament can improve the dialogue and policy action around issues specific to the Pakistani diaspora or British Asians more broadly.

The candidate that has won the public’s imagination is Labour Party’s Naz Shah, a disability rights campaigner who beat George Galloway in Bradford West. Shah is a survivor of forced marriage and domestic abuse, and the daughter of a woman who was found guilty of murder after poisoning her abusive partner. Shah’s story is an inspiring one of triumphing against the odds, but it is also directly relevant to the experience of the Pakistani diaspora. In recent years, the community has been subject to scrutiny and widespread criticism in the media for its poor track record on ‘honour killings’, forced marriage, and ‘grooming’ (the practice of sexual assault of minors). Hopefully Shah’s position — and her personal experience — will help the community have an internal discussion about these pertinent issues, and focus attention on the root causes of such issues — alienation, educational gaps, unemployment — rather than merely fuel racist or anti-immigrant responses.

Indeed, MPs of Pakistani origin can serve both BME constituencies and the wider public by focusing on the challenges faced by the Pakistani diaspora in the UK. The community was stung to read comparisons published by The Economist in February this year that showed Bangladeshi communities had outstripped Pakistani ones in terms of academic performance, employment, cultural assimilation and average monthly household income. The comparison highlighted that Pakistanis have struggled as a result of their migrant experience to northern English towns that have seen economic decline, rather than to vibrant cities where employment and social mobility are more likely. They also suffer more alienation as a result of the fact that more Pakistani immigrations are first-generation, having arrived in the country through marriage, as compared to other communities who have been settled in the UK for decades.

While resisting the temptation to treat BME voters as a monolith, MPs who pay closer attention to their issues could help bring behtari, as my fruit vendor would put it.

Published in Dawn, May 12th, 2015

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