Here's why the Tories convinced one million BME voters to support them

One of the funnier moments of the election involved Ed Miliband assuming that a turban-wearing Sikh gentleman he met on the campaign trail would, naturally, be helping him get the Sikh vote out for Labour. In fact, the man was a Conservative parliamentary candidate. It seemed to exemplify the extent to which Labour assumed ethnic minorities would vote for them – but all that is changing.

New research from British Future shows that 1 million BME voters helped keep David Cameron in Number 10. This means that one in three minority ethnic voters supported the Tories, which is the party’s best result to date. I was brought up in a pro-Labour household, by Indian parents from Glasgow and East Africa, but I now lead the Watford Conservative council group at the age of 24, so I’ve been thinking about what’s changed in order to convince BME voters to back the Tories.