Mixed race in the Liberal Democrats – an oppressed minority?

As I occasionally note, I fall into the approximately 1.2% of the population who define themselves as ‘mixed race’, and therefore supposedly part of the BME community.

I say ‘supposedly’ because, in the past week, it has become abundantly clear that those in the Party who speak so boldly on behalf of ethnic minorities care very little for me, my needs or my interests. The ongoing debate following the GLA selection has been entirely couched in terms of ‘visible’ ethnic minorities, and the assumption is that your status as a minority is therefore entirely defined by skin colour. If only it were that simple…

My mother was born in Keith, a small town about midway between Aberdeen and Inverness, and brought up in East Sussex. She has pale, occasionally almost translucent, skin, blonde hair and blue eyes. My father was born and raised in Mumbai, came to this country in the early sixties. They met, presumably fell in love, and have now been married for over forty years. He is brown-skinned, with brown eyes and, once upon a time, black hair. He is also from the generally overlooked minority Catholic faith.

Me, I’m brown-eyed, with dark brown hair (tending to grey these days, I’m afraid) with the skin tone of someone who has been out in the sun for just the right amount of time. When I look at myself in a mirror, I increasingly see my father, and there are much worse things to recognise, I can tell you.

I have always felt closer to my Indian family than to my English one, perhaps for no better reasons than that we think alike and that I am comfortable in their presence in a way that I never quite have been with my mother’s relatives.

Accordingly, I have always identified myself as half-Indian and proud of it. Occasionally, when my English friends are getting a little carried away with the sheer wonderfulness of being English, I like to remind them that my ancestors were building great civilisations at a time when painting yourself blue was considered the height of fashion here.

So you might therefore understand why the viewpoint of senior figures within both the Ethnic Minority Liberal Democrats and the Ethnic Minority Election Task Force troubles me. Their suggestion appears to be that only certain BME groups, as defined by them, are worthy of their attention and concern. The rest of us, who don’t quite fit with their view of the world, are somehow disposable and our views either an attempt to patronise or, worse still, to block meaningful change.

I’ve spent most of my political life below the surface of the Party’s processes, attempting in my own small way to create opportunity for all. The fact that I have no personal electoral ambitions appears to make some more cynical souls convinced that I have some other agenda. Clearly, if I had been more nakedly ambitious, my motives would have been more acceptable.

And so my public attempt to persuade the wider Party to make real efforts to create that mystical level playing field is at an end. Instead, I will try to find ways of using the machinery of the Party to experiment with new ideas, consulting with my friends to do so. It just isn’t worth the abuse of doing it any other way…

A year later, more warm words, but real progress?

I've already indicated that I had been unimpressed by the tenor of the motion scheduled for consideration on equality and diversity issues. And now, gentle reader, I have to report that the debate which followed was, frankly, equally unconvincing.

We are promised greater resourcing for staff to address these issues, yet the Federal Treasurer had, the previous day, indicated that this would be "very difficult". I sympathise with him on that, knowing that all three political parties have difficulties in funding current activities, let alone additional mandates.

The first amendment, from Surrey East, sought to remove language that I had created for the motion debated in Harrogate. If it had subsequently been argued that the idea that ethnicity or gender of the chosen candidate be a factor in deciding between two equally worthy options as to whether central support and funding would be available, they probably wouldn't have tried to remove it at all. Alas, there are some who would try to use the concept and torture it beyond mercy. Fortunately, it fell.

The second amendment, requesting that "our top target seats at the next general election include a fair proportion of ethnic minority and women candidates", is, I'm afraid, meaningless and I am disappointed, although unsurprised, that it was successfully passed. After all, it came with the imprimatur of the Ethnic Minority Liberal Democrats... which, dear Federal Conference, doesn't actually make it any good.

Having now created a sense that something will happen, I have to confess that it almost certainly won't. Good prospects are already selecting, and, given that Local Parties are entirely sovereign in terms of who they select, how do you make this particular dream come true? In two years time, when disenchantment has set in, this particular chicken will come home to roost.

Effectively, any progress on the whole issue of getting more women, and more ethnic minority Liberal Democrats elected as parliamentarians is now dependent on the goodwill of the leadership. We must now effectively trust them to do the right thing, adhering to our shared liberal values whilst doing so. My question is, do they want to make a difference, or be seen to be trying to do so? And that, my friends, is the crux of the dilemma.

But never mind, I've got a tax debate to get to, and we all know how much I love those...

Diversity and equality - missing the point?

I feel kind of bad about returning to this topic but, regretfully, have little choice it would appear. I've already noted the lack of actual content of the motion, and now I have to admit to being somewhat depressed about the quality of the response.

EMLD (Ethnic Minority Liberal Democrats) and the EMETF (Ethnic Minority Election Task Force) are touting their own amendment which includes the following gems:

Delete lines 10 to 11 and replace with

Conference urges all individual members, all local Parties and every section of the Liberal Democrat organisation to help recruit, encourage, mentor , support and select candidates from the under represented groups, and in particular visible (my emphasis) ethnic minority and women candidates for the Westminster Parliament, the Greater London Assembly and Local Councils.

I loathe the word visible. I'm an ethnic minority, albeit not of the heart on sleeve variety. Am I to be discriminated against because I'm not visible, although my surname marks me out as anything but white, anglo-saxon and protestant? Nought out of three ain't bad... but apparently not good enough to merit support...

Oh, but how about this...

Delete to end of line 27

Replace with

Furthermore conference urges State and Regional parties to sign up to the principle of equality in representation and to commit to implementing procedures which will ensure the chances of ethnic minority and women candidates being discriminated against are minimised.

What on earth does this mean? Are we to presume that the candidate approval process and the selection rules militate against ethnic minority candidates? For the record, the procedures don't. So are we supposed to roll out diversity awareness training to our members? I'm really sorry, but whining that life is unfair and asking your oppressors to come up with a solution is lame, in the extreme.

After line 32 add

Conference calls on the Leadership and the Campaigns Department to produce a strategy for speeding up the election of ethnic minority MPs followed by the election of MPs from other under groups. In particular conference asks that our top 100 target seats in the next general election include a fair proportion of ethnic minority and women candidates so as to reflect the community we serve.

Furthermore conference calls for any seats vacated by Liberal Democrats MPs at the next general election to be reserved for ethnic minority and women candidates.

The first paragraph here is well-meaning but dangerous. If the vast majority of our top 100 target seats are in areas where the ethnic minority population is below 5%, as I thoroughly expect them to be, is this a demand for, effectively, less ethnic minority candidates? As for the second paragraph, words fail me. Are you seriously proposing restrictive lists for certain constituencies? Didn't you learn anything from Blaenau Gwent? If even the massed control freaks of the Labour Party wouldn't wear it, what chance do you really think you have of persuading a bunch of, whisper it cautiously, liberals?

Sometimes I despair, I really do...