The latest poll of polls gives us the following: Conservatives 33%, Labour 32%, Liberal Democrats 7%, UKIP 15% and Green 6%. How might this translate to actual seats? Now this is a dangerous game, especially given we have two new phenomena that has destroyed the foundations of traditional analysis. Yes, I am talking about the UKIP and SNP effect. So based on current polls one might predict seat distribution to be: Conservatives 281, Labour 264, Liberal Democrats 24, UKIP 3 and Green 1. And therein we have the making of political Khichadi like none other.
This is where you and I come in. After five decades plus in this country (in reasonably large numbers) our community can actually make a difference. A few percentage points is all that it will take to change the mathematics. The minority ethnic communities have never been in such a powerful position before, and the political parties know it. So before you decide (as opposed to voting blindly as usual) think about the following.
The Labour Party was in power for some 13 years. Ask yourself the questions, ‘how many Gujarati MPs did they manage to secure?’ The answer is none of course. So after decades of getting our votes, the Labour Party with all its bravado did nothing to get even one Gujarati MP in parliament. That tells you everything you need to know. I hear you ask, but what about the Tories? Well it turns out that in less than a decade since enlightenment dawned to them about the importance of minority ethnic votes, the Tories have already got two Gujarati MP’s (Sailesh Vara and Priti Patel), both holding important positions within the Government. So in my view rhetoric and platitude don’t count for much, my interest is totally in outcomes and as far as I can make out, the Conservatives have overtaken the Labour Party when it comes to representing our community in parliament.
What else do you need to know? Well some of you will recall that during early 2014 (just before the Indian elections) we had some Labour MPs in bed with extremist organisations such as ‘Avaaz’, who held several anti-Modi (anti-Hindu) events at the House of Commons. Shortly thereafter we even had a major donor to the Labour Party, Anish Kapoor (the chap responsible for the multi-million pound scaffolding erected for Olympics 2012) come on BBC Newsnight and state that PM Modi was a mass murderer. To my knowledge (and I have asked many times now) the Leader of the Labour Party Ed Miliband has not denounced these activities. That begs the question, ‘what is the Labour Party playing at?’
Several months ago I wrote a piece titled, ‘Is Labour going Sharia’, in which the discussion highlighted a possible Labour strategy of enticing the Pakistani vote bank. In particular the Pakistani Kashmiri voter. One may well conclude that if a party is to be so much in bed with one particular ethnic community, then it’s likely that the interests of the Hindu community will be compromised in that process.
UKIP have thrown a curve bowl in British politics. The rise of ‘National Front’ like organisations across Europe has been startling. I am therefore not surprised that a milder more palatable version has become so successful in the UK. UKIP will be lucky to get more than 5 seats, but the votes they take away from the other parties will be damaging to the equation. Tories may well suffer disproportionately and with that, lose seats by small margins that they might otherwise would have held.
The SNP have taken the whole of Scotland by storm. Remember Scotland has been a fortress of votes for the Labour Party for decades. In May 2015 Labour will be lucky to hold onto even 5 seats in Scotland. The SNP will get close to 50 seats, and that my friends is an earthquake and a tsunami both rolled into one.
What is astonishing is that the Liberal Democrats will plummet to under 10% yet by the quirk of the British electoral system; they might still end up with some 25 seats. The relationship between the number of votes received and the number of seats gained will be compromised in these elections, leaving the LD’s still in a position to be part of the next Government either with Labour or with the Tories.
The Tories have rejected a coalition with the SNP, and rightly so. After all how can any political party even think of doing a deal with the SNP when its primary objective is to break up Great Britain? Interestingly it took Labour a very long time before Ed Miliband was forced to finally follow the Tories and state they would also not work the SNP.
The Indic vote is important. Politics has changed in this country. The traditional view of the parties has changed as well, as has their own internal politics. We must now be guided by what is good for us as a community. Over the coming decade, which political party is more likely to be in line with our needs and expectations? Is it the one that is in bed with the Pakistani Kashmiri vote bank? Make your decision wisely.
