LDCRE motion to London Region Conference

Conference welcomes the outcome of the 2024 general election in which the party won the historic total of 72 seats. 

However, as approximately 48% of London’s population is ethnic minority, constituting about half of the UK’s ethnic minority population, conference notes with concern:

1. That only 7.5% of English Party MPs are ethnic minority compared to ethnic minorities comprising 19% of the population of England;
2. That only 70 –  6.8%  – of English Party approved candidates are ethnic minority and only seven ethnic minority applicants were approved in the year to May 2024.
3. The aim of selecting target seats and having those seats select their candidates by February 2025 which makes it highly unlikely that any positive action can be taken to ensure better diversity of the candidates selected in those seats.
4. That failure to take action now to secure greater ethnic minority representation in our target seats will mean in practice that there is little possibility of significant change in our party’s Parliamentary representation for a decade.
5. The continued under-representation of ethnic minorities within our membership and at local party and regional level as outlined in LDCRE’s report Alderdice Six Years On.

Conference recalls London Region’s policy adopted by the Spring 2006 Federal Conference which:

1. stated that the under-representation of black and minority ethnic citizens is unhealthy for democracy, projecting an image which deters them and suggests that the party is failing to make the best use of all available skills and abilities; and that It is the responsibility of the party and individuals at all levels to ensure that the situation is improved;
2. called for the party to work towards a goal of ensuring proportional representation of black and minority ethnic citizens at all levels of representative government in the UK; and
3. set the party a target of at least 75 black and ethnic minority approved candidates by the 2010 election, which has still not been achieved 18 years after the target was set.

Conference believes that it is essential that urgent action is taken immediately to address the severe under-representation of ethnic minorities in our Parliamentary Party and among approved candidates.

Conference instructs the London Region executive to write to the Campaigns team at HQ and the English Party Executive to request the following:

1. Extend the deadline for the target seats (excluding those with sitting Lib Dem MPs) to approve their candidates to December 2025 and ensure that the new deadline and target seats are circulated sufficiently widely.
2. Take the ethnic minority candidates awaiting approval through the approval process as soon as possible.
3. Ensure one ethnic minority candidate on the shortlist for local parties’ candidate selection especially in the target seats.
4. Ensure that all ethnic minority approved candidates are given the same level of assistance (such as mentoring) as women candidates have been given by the Campaign for Gender Balance, with the party securing sufficient support for RDC to deliver this as quickly as possible.
5. Ensure that all those involved in approving Parliamentary candidates understand the priority of addressing the under-representation of ethnic minorities approved as candidates and selected by local parties and are given sufficient training on this, and
6. Strive to ensure that candidate assessment centres are racially diverse.

Finally, conference proposes setting up a taskforce, with the core of this group comprising the local activists in London region with the best knowledge and experience of building a diverse local party, with the aim of sharing this knowledge with the local London parties that are insufficiently diverse.