Javid: Party must regain trust of young and ethnic minority voters
THE Conservatives have gone “backwards” with ethnic minority voters, many of whom “simply don’t trust our motivations”, Sajid Javid has said.
Writing in a new book, the Home Secretary warns of an “electoral divide” between the Tories and ethnic minorities and called for the party to “reaffirm our identity and values”.
Mr Javid, one of two non-white MPs vying to succeed Theresa May as party leader, says the Conservatives could now be enjoying a parliamentary majority had they managed to maintain even the “unacceptably low” vote share David Cameron gained among black, Asian, and minority ethnic (BAME) voters in 2015.
He says that more housing is key to giving voters a “stake in society” and suggests the Government must take a “more proactive” approach to helping communities integrate.
“The Conservatism of our generation is one that chooses the path of modern, tolerant, global Britain,” Mr Javid writes in an essay in Beyond Brexit, which will be published by the Centre for Policy Studies think tank and the 2020 Group of Tory MPs.
“We refuse to see the seeds of hate and nationalism sown here and bear a huge responsibility as the only party with the power and will to make headway against these forces.”
The 49-year-old son of a Pakistani immigrant bus driver adds: “Showing leadership on these issues is the right thing to do. The last election was the first where age was almost perfectly correlated with voting intention. Worse still, we went backwards with ethnic minority voters. The stark truth is that if we had merely managed to maintain our – still unacceptably low – vote share among BAME voters from 2015, we would have been returned with a respectable parliamentary majority. Just imagine the difference that would have made to the last two years.”
Mr Javid’s essay, “A Defining Decade for Our Party and Country”, warns that the traditional dividing lines of politics are “tilted by nationalism and populism” and compares the challenges of the 2020s to those of the Twenties when “a cosy status quo was swept away by popular anger”.
Mr Javid adds: “When I was communities secretary, I went back to my hometown of Rochdale and visited a primary school where 90 per cent of the students were of Asian origin. Less than a mile down the road was a primary school where 90 per cent of the students were white.
“Can we continue to be passive about this kind of self-segregation, or is it time to take a more proactive approach to integration? Other Western countries, such as Canada and France, invest heavily in integration policies and language learning.”
Last night, Ruth Davidson, the leader of the Scottish Conservatives, backed Mr Javid in the leadership race, declaring him “the man for the job”.
Beyond Brexit, edited by George Freeman, the former chairman of Mrs May’s policy board, comprises almost 40 essays, including contributions by Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, and Dominic Raab, the former Brexit Secretary, who are also competing to succeed Mrs May.