1. 45 years on, do ethnic minorities
remember “rivers of blood”?
Friday, 19 April, 2013 in Ethnic minority voters
By Lord Ashcroft
Forty-five years ago this weekend, Enoch Powell warned of what he
saw as the consequences of immigration. The anniversary of the “rivers
of blood” speech is a good moment to ask how far Britain is regarded
as a multicultural society. It is also an opportunity to look further at the
attitudes of minority voters towards politics in general and the
Conservative Party in particular.
In a poll of 1,035 minority voters completed earlier this week I found
that nearly nine in ten think Britain has become a multicultural country,
and a similar proportion saying this is a good thing. In a nationally
representative poll conducted at the same time, 90% also said Britain
was multicultural, but only 70% were in favour of this development.
There was considerable variation between different kinds of people but
in only one group – UKIP voters – did a majority (57%) say they were
opposed to multiculturalism.
Three quarters of ethnic minority voters said that having people from a
wide variety of backgrounds had strengthened British culture, though
only just over half of the general population agreed. Just over half
(54%) of the national sample thought immigration had been a bad thing
for the country on the whole. 80% of black voters disagreed, but only
64% of those from an Asian background; only 51% of Sikhs thought
immigration had generally been good for Britain.
Strikingly, most minority voters thought “the different ethnic groups
that make up this country get on well”, while a majority of the general
population thought “there is an increasing amount of tension” between
them. Again, UKIP voters were the most likely to think this; indeed
black and Asian people were twice as likely as UKIP voters to think
relations between different ethnic groups were good.
Nearly nine in ten ethnic minority voters thought Labour supported
Britain being a multicultural country, with little variation between
groups. However, while only 38% of black Caribbean participants
thought the Conservatives favoured multiculturalism (though 44%

2. thought this of David Cameron), nearly two thirds of Hindus thought so
(and three quarters thought it true of the PM).
Only just over half (54%) of voters as a whole thought the Conservative
Party favoured multiculturalism. Tellingly, UKIP voters were much more
likely than average to think this was true of the Tories (73%).
Most participants in the ethnic minority poll could not name
spontaneously a single politician from their own or another minority
background. Keith Vaz was mentioned most commonly (by 10% of
participants), followed by Sayeeda Warsi, Diane Abbott and, perhaps
oddly, Ed Miliband. George Galloway, of all people, was fifth.
The memory of Enoch Powell remained strongest among black
Caribbean participants, 64% of whom said they had “heard of him and
know who he is or what he said”. Meanwhile, more than half of those
from an Asian background said they had never heard of him; only 28%
knew who he was. Among the wider population, nearly three quarters
had heard of Powell and 58% knew who he was or what he said. 90%
of UKIP voters fall into the latter category.
Nearly three quarters of Hindus, 70% of Sikhs and 68% of Muslims
agreed that “if you work hard, it is possible to be very successful in
Britain no matter what your background”. Only 59% of the general
population thought this. Those from a black Caribbean background
were the most likely to disagree: half thought it more true that “in
Britain today, people from some backgrounds will never have a real
chance to be successful no matter how hard they work”. This group
was also the least likely to think their children’s lives would be better
than theirs – only 51% thought this, compared to 67% of those from a
black African background and six in ten Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs.
The economy and jobs were overwhelmingly the most important issue
for ethnic minority participants. More than half mentioned the issue
spontaneously, with immigration second, raised by 6%. Only 22% of
black voters, and 38% of those from an Asian background, said they
most trusted David Cameron and George Osborne to manage the
economy (though 51% of Hindus did so – more than among the
population as a whole).
More generally, and not surprisingly, Labour was by far the best
regarded party among ethnic minorities. Again, though, there was
considerable variation in attitudes to the Conservatives. While the party
did uniformly badly among black and Muslim voters, Hindus and Sikhs
often had a rather more positive view of the Tories than did voters as a
whole.

3. Nevertheless, it remains a fact that only 16% of ethnic minority voters
supported the Conservatives at the last election. As I argued
in Degrees of Separation, we must do better than this – both because
we should be a party for the whole country, and because we will find it
increasingly difficult to win a majority without them. There is no doubt
that in 2010 this situation cost us seats.
The Conservatives are starting to take this issue seriously, with the
energetic Alok Sharma in charge as Vice Chairman for BME
Communities. This is welcome, but in my experience the party has
often proved unable or unwilling to sustain long term projects. The
urgent always ends up crowding out the important. It will take more
than one parliament to get this right, but we must.