Tory candidate: Conservative party not doing enough to convince minorities it is not racist

Is the Conservative party doing enough to attract ethnic minority voters? We’ve reported previous pushes by Chairman Grant Shapps and Home Secretary Theresa May to appeal to groups who have centre-right values but are turned off the Tories. But the FT today suggests that the top of the party is struggling to show enthusiasm, with one party insider claiming that Lynton Crosby feels it ‘muddies the message’ to move away from economy, jobs, welfare and immigration.

The party’s candidate in Dudley North, Afzal Amin, agrees that the Conservatives are failing to communicate properly with ethnic minority voters. He told Coffee House:

‘What’s very clear to me is that in the Sandwell and Dudley areas where I grew up and I now live, for the vast majority of people, whether they’re black or from the Indian subcontinent, the general perception is that the party remains a racist party and we have not done enough to convince them that this is not the case.’

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He added that the party was still trying to talk to voters from ethnic minorities as though they had just arrived in this country:

‘The policies we have are very, very good policies, and they are right policies, but often we communicate with our ethnic minority voters as though they belong somewhere else.