Who’s up in 10 Downing Street race?

Cameron has eyes set on second term

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Whatever happens on May 7, the Prime Minister will be either David Cameron or Ed Miliband though outright majority for their parties is ruled out. The shift in the arithmetic of the British political landscape is down to the success of smaller parties. But with these parties poised to make or break the deal, many experts argue that the new Conservative or Labour-led government will be unsustainable and fresh polls to the 650-member House of Commons will have to be called in November. This would inevitably mean new leadership of the main parties.

ONE of the most keenly fought general elections in recent British political history has seen the major parties taking their campaigns to the heart of even the smallest of minority communities. Hence the decision by the Conservative Party leader and Prime Minister, David Cameron, to visit a gurdwara in Gravesend, Kent, where he and his wife, Samantha, participated in Baisakhi celebrations.

Never mind that one of the priests objected to speeches being delivered during prayer time. Cameron made sure his empathy with the Sikh community was duly recorded by commenting: “I’m proud to be the first Prime Minister to host a Baisakhi reception at No. 10 (the British Prime Minister’s official residence). And I’ll tell you what — if I’m back there as Prime Minister, I’ll keep bringing the community, the colour and the celebrations there, again and again. And l’m sure my children will carry on stealing the jalebis too.”

Cameron is also keen to draw parallels with the values of Hinduism and the core beliefs of the Conservatives. “When l look at the Ramayana and my understanding of the Hindu religion, there is so much that you have to say about the importance of family, about the importance of community and about the importance of voluntary service,” he was recently quoted as saying. “These are all the values that our country needs more of.”

Against the backdrop of these comments, the Conservative Friends of India highlighted the first-ever Hindi song to be released in British election history. The song entitled Neela Hai Aasman refers to the Conservative Party’s political colour before adding, Yehi rang hai, Britain ki shaan.

Whether by accident or design, Samantha Cameron was pictured only a few days later campaigning in the London borough of Hounslow, where she was pictured taking off her shoes before entering the home of Sikh businessman Baljinder Hansra. Parts of Hounslow make up the marginal outer London seat of Brentford and Isleworth that the Conservatives won from Labour in 2010.

NRI candidates 

NRI star performers among the Conservatives include Rishi Sunak, son-in-law of Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy, who is widely expected to win from the safe constituency of Richmond, North Yorkshire, which is being vacated by former Conservative Foreign Secretary William Hague. If Sunak does win, he will supplement the Conservatives’ current list of four NRI MPs — Shailesh Vara, Priti Patel, Alok Sharma and Paul Uppal. Both Patel and Vara have served as junior Conservative ministers. 

Take on economy

• The future management of the British economy is undoubtedly the key topic in Thursday’s poll. The Conservatives want voters to let them “finish the job we started” by capping public spending, reducing borrowing, lowering the national deficit and cutting taxes, particularly for middle and lower earners.
• Labour, on the other hand, says it wouldn’t cut as quickly and also wants to raise taxes to “invest in public services” in order to create a “fairer society”.
• Most opinion polls show voters trust the Conservatives more when it comes to managing the nation’s finances, although Labour till this weekend was marginally in the overall lead.

Miliband sees a chance too

In Labour’s case, no obvious successor to Miliband is on the horizon. For the Conservatives, Home Secretary Theresa May is positioning herself to attract the women’s vote. The more obvious candidate to replace Cameron is London Mayor Boris Johnson, who is standing in the West London constituency of Uxbridge and South Ruislip. Arguably Britain’s most popular politician, he has made no secret of his desire to get the keys to the PM’s residence. His supporters insist he is capable of producing a landslide win in the way Tony Blair did for Labour in 1997.

A 1.8 per cent swing could see the London seat of Brentford and Isleworth, which the Conservatives wrested from Labour in 2010, return to Labour. This would signal that the party of socialists and trade unionists headed by Ed Miliband is likely to be the largest in the new Parliament of 650 MPs, and accordingly, most likely to form the next government.

Britain’s 4.23 lakh Sikhs make up about a quarter of the 16 lakh NRI population. Of them, about 7 lakh will be eligible to vote. By any standards, these are small numbers, but when they are concentrated in 50 marginal constituencies, getting their support is vital for any party hoping for power.

Typical of the marginal is the Hampstead and Kilburn constituency in London, which was won by Labour firebrand and former actress Glenda Jackson, who held on to the seat by a margin of just 42 votes. Her successor is Tulip Siddiq, granddaughter of Bangladesh founder Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who is facing strong opposition from her Conservative rival Simon Marcus.

If a marginal like Hampstead and Kilburn falls to Labour, just like Brentford and Isleworth, that will be a further indication that Miliband will be summoned by Queen Elizabeth II and given the first shot to form a new government.

Miliband too has been touring temples and gurdwaras in a bid to dispel any perception that Labour takes NRI support for granted. Early in April, he wore a red (Labour’s traditional political colour) headscarf during a controversial visit to a gurdwara in Leamington, where some Sikh activists accused him of barring journalists from covering the event.

Labour Party officials rejected the accusation, but that did not prevent a spokesperson for the Sikh Federation from telling the British media: “The whole thing was very carefully stage managed. They said there will be no cameras, they were telling people not to even use their phones to take any pictures inside. That is unheard of inside a gurdwara. Some of the party officials were downright rude.”

NRIs in the past have supported Labour because this was seen as the party that supported Indian Independence. But the support has declined. 

Labour has four NRIs in the outgoing Parliament, including Keith Vaz (a former Labour Foreign Office minister), his sister Valerie Vaz, Virendra Sharma and Seema Malhotra.

Losing favour with ethnic groups

According to an analysis late last year by Dr Maria Sobolewska of the British Election Study social science survey, “Labour is not really sitting pretty on ethnic minorities anymore, and in fact, it wasn’t in 2010 either. A lot of the ethnic minority groups, in fact all of the ethnic minority groups, supported Labour a lot less even in 2010, but this did not yet make Labour worried. The percentage of people who identify with the Labour Party is falling very fast.

“The ethnic minorities are seen to be the core of Labour party vote, they have been for years, for decades, but it will make these people here representing Labour a little bit uncomfortable about this assumption that minorities will vote for them as a matter of course.”

NRI support

NRIs in the past have supported Labour because this was seen as the party that supported Indian Independence. As recently as 1997, some 77 per cent NRIs identified with Labour. But by 2010, this had declined to 43 per cent and 18 per cent in 2014.

The Scots hold key

On May 8, the forming of a minority government or coalition will come down to key negotiations with other small parties. The success story of the election campaign so far is undoubtedly the Scottish National Party (SNP), led by Nicola Sturgeon. The party’s meteoric rise follows the Scottish independence referendum, where Scotland voted narrowly against independence, despite energetic campaigning to the contrary by the SNP.

They are now widely forecast to hold the balance of power come Friday morning, with data suggesting they could win all 59 seats in Scotland, defeating front bench MPs of the major national political parties. They include cabinet minister Danny Alexander (a Liberal Democrat) and Labour Shadow Foreign Secretary Douglas Alexander. Sturgeon has “vowed not to do a deal with the Conservatives”, which leaves an arrangement between Labour and the SNP the most likely outcome.

Given these predictions, the SNP, the party that openly wants to break up the UK, will be powerful enough to prop up the next government, while influencing policy to suit their pro-nationalist agenda. Included in this agenda is a demand that any future administration must commit itself to ending economic austerity. More significant, though, is the SNP’s demand that Britain gives up its nuclear deterrent by abandoning its Trident nuclear weapons system. This would leave neighbouring France as the only European country with an independent nuclear arsenal.

Truck with Conservatives?

A possible outcome of the election is the Conservatives having the most seats, although not enough to form the government. In these circumstances, they would to seek another coalition deal. The most obvious choice for a junior partner would be the Liberal Democrats, the two parties having governed successfully together in the last five years.

Whether a new pact is possible specifically depends on how many of their 57 seats the Liberal Democrats lose on Thursday. Their popularity slumped after they were unable to fulfil their 2010 campaign promise of abolishing university tuition fees. Leader Nick Clegg has set his party as the ideal coalition partner, saying he would give a “brain” to the Labour Party and a “heart” to the Conservatives.

If the Liberal Democrats’ support slumps dramatically, as polls suggest it will, even smaller fringe parties like the Welsh nationalists of Plaid Cymru, the Democratic Unionists and Ulster Unionists of Northern Ireland, as well as the Greens hoping to improve on their single elected MP, could all play a role in negotiations to form the new government.

Liberal Democrats are just as keen to harvest the NRI vote. A past president of the party, Lord Navnit Dholakia, is an NRI of East African origin, but the party has no NRIs in the House of Commons. To date, it remains an all-White party when it comes to the elected lower chamber of Parliament. One of their prized NRI candidates, Gita Gordon, is fighting from the South Shields constituency, although this has been a Labour stronghold since 2001, when it was captured by David Miliband, brother of the Labour leader, who reigned in 2013. She is unlikely to win.

Anti-immigrant stance

The vast majority of credible analysts say it is impossible — regardless of the NRI vote — for any party to secure an outright majority. Even figures within the Labour and Conservative headquarters concede this, although not on the record.

This shift in the arithmetic of the British political landscape is specifically down to the successes of smaller, and often, more radical parties. During this election, more than ever, it looks like smaller parties will decide the fate of major players. Over the past four years, the United Kingdom Independence Party, better known as UKIP, and its enigmatic leader Nigel Farage has been dominating the headlines, capitalising on the strong anti-immigration groundswell, particularly among the UK’s working classes.

UKIP’s main aim is to withdraw Britain from the European Union (EU), a very popular theme that polarises much of the population. Supporters argue it would reduce immigration from other EU states, including Bulgaria, Rumania and Poland.

The UKIP’s electoral plank of seeing the UK move away from the European Union may be conterproductive. Critics and political analyists warn that leaving the  European Union would irreversibly damage the British economy, not least because many multi-national conglomerates would relocate their European headquarters away from London to cities like Paris, Brussels and Frankfurt. 

It remains to be seen if Nigel Farage can carry his party forward on the anti-immigration and anti-EU sentiment.