“There are plenty of British Obamas out there, but you will find them in the pulpits and other places of worship, not in parliament.” Simon Woolley of Operation Black Vote is certain that an “Obama effect” is boosting his drive for positive discrimination to ensure more non-white MPs. Introducing a bill to amend our race equality laws to allow parties to discriminate in favour of minorities, the Leicester MP Keith Vaz hailed Barack Obama as the “poster boy” for integration. How strange it would be if Obama’s momentum were to propel British parties into adopting all-minority shortlists for parliamentary seats.
Obama himself has insisted on a generational shift: breaking the “black politician” mould to become a viable presidential candidate, and not one defined by race. In contrast, all-minority shortlists risk ghettoising Britain’s next generation of non-white politicians and derailing the new politics of equality that we need.
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