World
The UK’s Ethnic Election
Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron, left, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, center, and Labour party leader Ed Miliband attend the Service of Commemoration Afghanistan, at St Paul’s Cathedral in London, Friday, March 13, 2015. (AP Photo/John Stillwell, Pool)
BARKING, UK (Politico) — For as long as modern Britons have voted, politics here has revolved around class. But this year, Britain is having its first truly ethnic election.
Scotland is set to fall to the Scottish National Party. The old three-party oligopoly — Conservative, Labour and Liberal-Democrat — looks dead in England with the rise of the anti-immigrant United Kingdom Independence Party, known universally as UKIP.
Ethnicity is now vital for the old parties, too.
The Labour Party has done well out of immigration. At the 2010 general election, 68 percent of Britain’s ethnic minorities voted for Labour. Only 16 percent chose the Conservative Party.
But Labour has also done badly. The party is widely seen as responsible for much of Britain’s ethnic mutation. Many now fear this is eroding the loyalty of the white working class the Labour Party was founded on.
