Iron Angle: Tories and the white wing
Birmingham will become Britain’s first majority ethnic city probably within the next 10 years, which really isn’t very far away at all.
But how relevant in 2020 will the city’s Conservative Party be to the vibrant and cosmopolitan Brum, where Asian and African Caribbean citizens outnumber their white counterparts?
I pose the question since the Tories are, not for the first time, in a bit of a pickle over how to react to the city’s fast-changing demographics.
David Cameron, to his great credit, is attempting to drag what a former Tory chairman once described as the nasty party, into the modern era. He wants, or at least he says he wants, a far more representative mix of women and ethnic councillors and MPs.
In Birmingham, however, the Tories control the city council with a solidly white grouping of 49 councillors.
The ethnic balance is only offered by the Tory coalition partners the Liberal Democrats, who have fared far better by winning inner city wards with Asian candidates. Indeed, if it wasn’t for the Lib Dems Birmingham would be in the embarrassing position of having a council cabinet without a single Asian member.
Later this month an African Caribbean business consultant will be taking the Ladywood Conservative Association to an employment tribunal claiming racial discrimination because he was not selected to be the party’s candidate at this year’s city council elections.
The case of Fitzroy Stevenson, though, is a bit of a blue herring. The Tories can argue that there is no discrimination here because the candidate they did select, Sharon Pennant, is also African Caribbean. On top of that, they have chosen an Asian woman to be their parliamentary candidate in Ladywood.
As for Mr Stevenson, well he simply wasn’t judged to be the best available candidate on the day.
This is all well and good, except that Birmingham Conservatives seem hell bent on selecting black candidates for seats that a Tory would never win in a month of Sundays.
The party can point to a substantial record since 2004 of picking Asian and African Caribbean candidates in wards like Aston, Nechells and Handsworth Wood, but those that are chosen to fly the Tory flag must know they have no chance of winning in solidly Labour or Liberal Democrat territory.
In Ladywood for example, a swing of some 13 per cent is required for a Conservative win at the May 6 city elections, while in Handsworth Wood the shift is nearer to 15 per cent.
This would not be so bad if the unwinnable seats were used as training ground for a crop of the best and brightest ethnic Conservatives. Let them cut their teeth, and then move them up to contest seats where they can win.
But this simply is not happening. When vacancies become available in safe Tory territory, such as Sutton Coldfield and south Birmingham, white candidates are always chosen.
For all of Mr Cameron’s bluster and veiled threats, the fact remains that Conservative Associations are pretty much a law unto themselves. Party officials in London can urge and cajole and appeal for change, but seemingly cannot force the hand of the local party organisation.
Mr Stevenson’s case is frighteningly similar to that of former Aston Conservative Association chairman Gulfram Khan, who in 2004 hit the headlines by claiming that the party was blocking his attempt to become selected as a council candidate in Sutton Coldfield. He was offered Nechells, where he could safely be forgotten about or, perhaps, presented as a grand gesture toward the Tory equalities policy.
Gulfram Khan spoke of a “colonial attitude”, adding that he had “put the fear of God” into Birmingham Conservatives by demanding the right to stand for the council in rock-solid safe Sutton Trinity ward, where they tend to weigh rather than count the Conservative votes.
Six years on, Fitzroy Stevenson insists he was told by white party officials that he “was not the right sort of person” for the Ladywood seat. He will also complain to the employment tribunal that some members of the selection panel considering his application made it clear that they didn’t much like African Caribbean people.
No one is pretending any of this is easy for the Conservatives. And it is true that party workers are making heroic efforts to increase the party’s presence and popularity in places like Ladywood.
But time is against the Tories. It is already a matter of serious concern that the Conservative group running Britain’s largest city is so unrepresentative of those they seek to govern.
In 2004, Tory council leader Mike Whitby sought to dismiss the issue by saying: “We have at least five Muslim candidates in seats which they believe they can win.”
If they really did believe that, they were the only ones, Mike.
