Labour won’t be able to rely on ethnic minority voters as ‘bloc’ of support in future, says major report
Good morning. Labour has already been in office for almost 100 days, but in some respects it still feels like we’re at the start of a new political season. This morning Keir Starmer is chairing his first cabinet since Morgan McSweeeney replaced Sue Gray as the key aide in No 10 (a move which could have radical implications, as Pippa Crerar reports here), this afternoon Tory MPs are holding another ballot to elect their next leader, and, with the conference recess over, MPs are getting down to a busy three months of parliamentary business, with the budget only three weeks away tomorrow.
Labour won a big majority at the election, but the big story of politics in recent years is the fragementation of the electorate, and this morning the thinktank UK in a Changing Europe has published a major report on the attitudes and voting behaviours of ethnic minority Britons. For anyone interested in this topic, it has lots of very good data, but two findings in particular stand out.
-
Labour will not be able to rely on ethnic minority voters as a ‘bloc’ of support in the future, the report says. In his introduction James Kanagasooriam, the pollster from Focaldata who produced the data used in the report, says that it is still the case that, overall, ethnic minority Britons are much more likely to vote left than right than white Britons. He says:
At the 2024 election, the combined vote share of Labour, the Greens and the Liberal Democrats was 66% among ethnic minorities, while that for the Conservatives and Reform UK was 26%. Among white voters, the equivalent figures were 53% and 41%. Any discussion over Labour’s problems with minority voters and Conservative gains needs to be tempered by these facts.
But he goes on:
At future elections, Labour cannot rely on ethnic minority voters as a ‘bloc’ of support. It is true that the Labour Party still convinces a far greater proportion of minorities with ‘warm’ views of the party to vote for it than the Conservative Party does. But among many ethnic groups, there is a fundamental disjunction between opinion on the salient issues of the day and voting patterns. Our polling suggests that Labour support among ethnic minorities is an ossified cultural and historical legacy that could disappear very quickly.
This chart shows how ethnic minority voting behaviour changed between 2019 and 2024.
-
Having a degree makes white voters more leftwing, but ethnic minority voters more rightwing, the report says. In his introduction Kanagasooriam describes this as the Lee Anderson-Rishi Sunak factor in Tory support. He explains:
The demography of right and left is vastly different between white and non-white voters. White voters differ hugely on their educational profile, with non-graduates drifting right over the last 20 years, and graduates to the left. Amongst non-white Britons, graduate level education makes you proportionately more likely to be Conservative. Class cleavages and patterns that have disappeared from the voting patterns of white Britons exist and are indeed getting stronger amongst non-white voters. The Conservative Party will continue to have its esoteric coalition of affluent minorities and nongraduate whites and Labour the opposite. In other words, the Lee Anderson – Rishi Sunak spectrum is a feature, not a bug, of right-wing politics.
And this chart illustrates the point.
There is a summary of the report here, the main 77-page document is here, and the technical appendix is here.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: Keir Starmer chairs cabinet.
9.30am: The Office for National Statistics publishes its latest population estimates.
11am: The four Tory leadership candidates – James Cleverly, Robert Jenrick, Kemi Badenoch and Tom Tugendhat – are due to take part in a private hustings for Tory MPs, before the third ballot for MPs opens.
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
After 12.30pm: MPs begin a debate on a Tory opposition day motion, criticising the plan to impose VAT on private school fees.
3pm: Economists from the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the Institute for Government give evidence to the Lords economic affairs committee about the government’s debt target.
3.30pm: Bob Blackman, chair of the 1922 Committee, is due to announce the result of the third ballot of Tory MPs for the Tory leader.
If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line (BTL) or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.
If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. I’m still using X and I’ll see something addressed to @AndrewSparrow very quickly. I’m also trying Bluesky (@andrewsparrowgdn) and Threads (@andrewsparrowtheguardian).
I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos (no error is too small to correct). And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.
Key events
As Gwyn Topham reports, the government has been told by the rail industry that building HS2 all the way to London Euston and Crewe could save the government money by enabling it to lease the line out for much more.
Haigh comes close to confirming HS2 will run to Euston, saying ending it at Old Oak Common would not make sense
During her morning interview round Louise Haigh, the transport secretary, also all but confirmed that HS2 will be extended to Euston station in London.
When Rishi Sunak announced that the last government was cancelling the Birmingham to Manchester leg of HS2, he said that it would definitely run to Old Oak Common, a station in west London.
He also indicated that the final stretch, a 4.5 mile tunnel from Old Oak Common to Euston, would go ahead too. But he said this was dependent on the project attracting private sector funding, which meant the government could not 100% confim it would be completed.
As PA Media reports, the Commons’ public accounts committee issued a report in February stating it was “highly sceptical” that the Department for Transport would be able to attract private investment on “the scale and speed required” to make extending HS2 to Euston “a success”.
Labour has inherited the last government’s plans and has not yet said the Euston stretch will definitely go ahead.
But, in an interview on Times Radio this morning, asked if the Euston leg was affordable, Haigh replied:
We will be making an announcement on that soon. But it certainly would never have made sense to leave it between Old Oak Common and Birmingham.
Asked if the announcement may come in the budget, she said: “It may be made around those decisions.”
Keir Starmer does not have a problem with women, says transport secretary
Keir Starmer does not have a problem with women, the transport secretary, Louise Haigh, has said, adding that the prime minister had promoted a number of women – but she admitted the government had made “missteps”. Jessica Elgot has the story.
Labour won’t be able to rely on ethnic minority voters as ‘bloc’ of support in future, says major report
Good morning. Labour has already been in office for almost 100 days, but in some respects it still feels like we’re at the start of a new political season. This morning Keir Starmer is chairing his first cabinet since Morgan McSweeeney replaced Sue Gray as the key aide in No 10 (a move which could have radical implications, as Pippa Crerar reports here), this afternoon Tory MPs are holding another ballot to elect their next leader, and, with the conference recess over, MPs are getting down to a busy three months of parliamentary business, with the budget only three weeks away tomorrow.
Labour won a big majority at the election, but the big story of politics in recent years is the fragementation of the electorate, and this morning the thinktank UK in a Changing Europe has published a major report on the attitudes and voting behaviours of ethnic minority Britons. For anyone interested in this topic, it has lots of very good data, but two findings in particular stand out.
-
Labour will not be able to rely on ethnic minority voters as a ‘bloc’ of support in the future, the report says. In his introduction James Kanagasooriam, the pollster from Focaldata who produced the data used in the report, says that it is still the case that, overall, ethnic minority Britons are much more likely to vote left than right than white Britons. He says:
At the 2024 election, the combined vote share of Labour, the Greens and the Liberal Democrats was 66% among ethnic minorities, while that for the Conservatives and Reform UK was 26%. Among white voters, the equivalent figures were 53% and 41%. Any discussion over Labour’s problems with minority voters and Conservative gains needs to be tempered by these facts.
But he goes on:
At future elections, Labour cannot rely on ethnic minority voters as a ‘bloc’ of support. It is true that the Labour Party still convinces a far greater proportion of minorities with ‘warm’ views of the party to vote for it than the Conservative Party does. But among many ethnic groups, there is a fundamental disjunction between opinion on the salient issues of the day and voting patterns. Our polling suggests that Labour support among ethnic minorities is an ossified cultural and historical legacy that could disappear very quickly.
This chart shows how ethnic minority voting behaviour changed between 2019 and 2024.
-
Having a degree makes white voters more leftwing, but ethnic minority voters more rightwing, the report says. In his introduction Kanagasooriam describes this as the Lee Anderson-Rishi Sunak factor in Tory support. He explains:
The demography of right and left is vastly different between white and non-white voters. White voters differ hugely on their educational profile, with non-graduates drifting right over the last 20 years, and graduates to the left. Amongst non-white Britons, graduate level education makes you proportionately more likely to be Conservative. Class cleavages and patterns that have disappeared from the voting patterns of white Britons exist and are indeed getting stronger amongst non-white voters. The Conservative Party will continue to have its esoteric coalition of affluent minorities and nongraduate whites and Labour the opposite. In other words, the Lee Anderson – Rishi Sunak spectrum is a feature, not a bug, of right-wing politics.
And this chart illustrates the point.
There is a summary of the report here, the main 77-page document is here, and the technical appendix is here.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: Keir Starmer chairs cabinet.
9.30am: The Office for National Statistics publishes its latest population estimates.
11am: The four Tory leadership candidates – James Cleverly, Robert Jenrick, Kemi Badenoch and Tom Tugendhat – are due to take part in a private hustings for Tory MPs, before the third ballot for MPs opens.
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
After 12.30pm: MPs begin a debate on a Tory opposition day motion, criticising the plan to impose VAT on private school fees.
3pm: Economists from the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the Institute for Government give evidence to the Lords economic affairs committee about the government’s debt target.
3.30pm: Bob Blackman, chair of the 1922 Committee, is due to announce the result of the third ballot of Tory MPs for the Tory leader.
If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line (BTL) or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.
If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. I’m still using X and I’ll see something addressed to @AndrewSparrow very quickly. I’m also trying Bluesky (@andrewsparrowgdn) and Threads (@andrewsparrowtheguardian).
I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos (no error is too small to correct). And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.