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 What hope for a British Obama?
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Black-only shortlists and community organisation are the only way Britain will emulate the triumph of US political pluralism
Lester Holloway
guardian.co.uk
Thursday November 6 2008 20.00 GMT
Nothing illustrated the Obama effect in Britain more than the series of parties on election night. While much of Britain welcomed his victory, many people of African or Caribbean background share with their American brothers and sisters a particular and deep sense of elation at the result
I believe that Obama will inspire many young people in Britain to get involved in politics. There will be plenty of British Obamas out there, men and women. And if any of them are to become a future prime minister, political parties will have to learn to open their doors to them
Unless parties respond urgently with concrete measures to overcome the reluctance of their local branches to pick black talent, I fear the answer to the question about whether we will see a British Obama will be "No"
We don't do US-style primaries, and it is fiendishly difficult for anyone to get into parliament. Yet the barriers facing potential black and Asian candidates are that much higher
In his acceptance speech Obama made clear that his candidacy was not hatched in the corridors of Washington. Over here, tip-offs about emerging vacancies happen in the Westminster village or during all-white dinner parties. That's not where our future Obamas are moving
Contests in urban areas are congested with floods of wannabes, while seats in small towns and the country are already sewn up by local favoured sons: white, middle-aged men, often council leaders – machine politicians who fail to inspire parliament or the people of Britain. Outsiders, however talented, just don't stand a chance
Black and Asian people are chronically under-represented in parliament. During her successful deputy leadership campaign Harriet Harman said she wanted "four times more" MPs so that the Commons reflects society
The trouble is none of the parties are doing anything remotely adequate to make a real difference at the next general election, never mind "four times more"
For the sake of democracy we cannot afford to lose a generation of young Obamas. At the present rate it could take 160 years to achieve racial equality in the chamber. Quite simply, evolution has had its chances
One solution is a "party list" system. This is open to accusations of creating two tiers of politicians, one tier holding big, swinging majorities and the other humbly bearing thank-you notes to the party apparatchiks whose patronage earned them a place at the table
However, London assembly chairwoman Jennette Arnold is an example of someone who first got in through a party list, has proven herself an effective politician, and is now directly elected by voters
The main drawback of the list system is that it can let local party structures off the hook because any lack of diversity in their choices can be compensated by the top-up list. It also risks producing party loyalists without roots in their community
The idea of a "Bernie's List" of training and support for potential candidates has been mooted in Labour ranks, based on the "Emily's List"for women
I am all for this, provided it can help independent-minded future Bernie Grants become MPs as well as ambitious career politicians
But when discussing "Bernie's List", we must remember that progress in addressing the gender deficit came about because Emily's List worked alongside all-women shortlists
Following Operation Black Vote's report on all-black shortlists, Harman backed the idea but the government backed off when some Asian MPs objected. Personally I don't believe the objectors were speaking for the majority of black or Asian people, but what matters is the strength of the argument, not the fact that four of five individuals don't like it. Some MPs voted for 42 days' detention, but the government backed down because the arguments against this proposal won
All-black lists are not patronising, they are enabling, and the concept has been proven to deliver high-quality MPs if reactionary forces are faced down, as Labour did with all-women shortlists
But I believe that party lists, training or all-black lists are not the whole answer to allowing our young black and Asian talent to succeed in politics; there also needs to be effective self-organisation
There are no legal restrictions on black and Asian party members working together around common interests. The organisations Ethnic Minority Lib Dems and BAME Labour are evidence of some collaboration in these parties, but these entities remain paper tigers
The first big breakthrough in representation saw Paul Boateng, Keith Vaz, Diane Abbott and the late Bernie Grant elected in 1987. This came about because black and Asian Labour members got serious and organised in Black Sections. Two decades later there is a desperate need for something like this again, because history teaches us that creating a more diverse parliament will need not just action in party HQs but pressure from the grassroots, too.
What Black Sections also teach us is that the best black representatives saw themselves not as individuals but as being linked to a community as well as a party
Sunder Katwala argues for the status quo when it comes to ethnic minority representation. The evidence is that parties, particularly Labour, are crawling at snail's pace, with just one or two new ethnic minority MP's added at each general election
So far, Labour have selected just four new ethnic minority candidates in winnable seats, Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow – a seat that used to have a black MP before), Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South) Shabana Mahmood (Birmingham Ladywood) and Chuka Umunna (Streatham). That's nothing to boast about. The Tories have done better this time around, but it remains to be seen whether that will be a permanent fixture of their selections in future or not
Sunder says he wants to "address race, gender and class factors coherently", but while we have all-women shortlists and some local parties that prefer working-class MPs, there are no comparable measures to accelerate the number of ethnic minority MPs. There is a general consensus that black and Asian people are chronically under-represented in the Commons and that something should be done about it. No political leaders are arguing that the current rate of evolution is acceptable
We therefore need to debate how to make this happen, rather than take a backward step and try to claim that the very moderate levels of progress mean we do not need any more specific action to tackle the issue
American presidential campaigns are about personalities, and many young people in Britain may imagine they can rise up as individuals. It is up to older, wiser, ######### to show them the benefits of a movement. And it is up to parties to change the political system to overcome the in-built barriers that hold back our representative democracy
Together, these twin forces can rise to the challenge Obama presents. The challenge that we too may have inspiring black politicians who are able to win the support of every part of society, and ultimately change Britain for the better, as we all hope Obama will do in the States
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Mohamed Omer
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