General Election 2019: minorities are not pieces on a chess board

Source: European Parliament Flickr

Asyia Iftikhar critiques political parties’ weaponisation of minority groups.

Minorities are not pieces on a chess board.

We are not a political jockey you get to run around when you feel like it. 

This election has become one of the most toxic environments for minorities across the spectrum, whether it be through antisemitism, Islamophobia or xenophobia in general. Racism has been weaponised as a partisan issue with all the major parties pointing fingers at each other. As the debate intensifies, communities that should be sticking together to tackle injustice have instead been torn apart by the very representatives who say they care to help. 

Racism is, unfortunately, still prevalent in every aspect of our society. People have conveniently forgotten that antisemitism is not a problem unique to Labour, nor is Islamophobia an issue unique to the Conservatives. To sweep aside the ever increasing racism infecting every section of government and institutions is a disservice to the people we are eager to support. 

The existence of racism in both the major parties has never surprised me. The structures that still exist within our institutions which allow discrimination to thrive, combined with lack of education or awareness, mean that naturally the two biggest parties in the country have entrenched issues with racism. 

The solution is not to point fingers, deny the problems, and claim innocence, but to tackle the issue head on. Since we know it is a problem, the focus shouldn’t be what is being said or done during an election campaign, but rather, historically what each party (and leader) has done to prove that they are serious about tackling racism outside of the context of winning an election and what they plan to do going forward.

The Conservatives, who in the past few weeks now seem to care about antisemitism (and racism in general), have mentioned the words ‘prejudice’, ‘discrimination’, and ‘racism’ just once respectively in their manifesto. For the party who claim to be appalled by the rampant antisemitism in our society, they have not given a single policy or any proof they are ready to tackle increasing intolerance through our education system. On the other hand, they have recently had three allegations of Conservative candidate anti-semitism. The Party has also unveiled a statue (Nancy Astor) of a proud antisemite, and the Prime Minister himself has written a Jewish character using harmful stereotypes in one of his fiction books, Seventy-Two Virgins. To claim voting Conservative is voting for Jewish people is an extremely concerning narrative.

For the far-right, this is the ideal scenario, because minorities who are pitted against one another and the more vulnerable will have far less support when it comes to taking down prejudice and preventing certain legislation, which will further oppress us. 

To give credit where credit is due, whilst they have reinstated a number of councillors and candidates who were accused of Islamophobia, they have also suspended a few people. Moreover, Boris Johnson, after immense pressure and constant refusal, did utter an apology to Muslim women, and the Conservatives have announced they will have an enquiry into general discrimination in the Party (despite not giving detail as to what this entails, and being criticised by Baroness Sayeeda Warsi).

Now we turn to the Labour Party. I will be the first to admit that I am deeply disappointed by the lack of action by Labour when concerns first arose of antisemitism within the party. They were far too slow to act and when they did, it was nowhere near strong or harsh enough. Since then, Jeremy Corbyn has been heavily criticised by a number of figures in the Jewish community who are worried about his potential leadership. However, since then Corbyn has consistently spoken out against antisemitism, looked to arrange peace talks among hostile groups to stop violence, and since it has become a media issue, has apologised four times for the hurt that has been caused by the Jewish community. In contrast to the Conservatives, Labour have a separate detailed race and faith manifesto which explains how they plan to tackle and educate on all forms of discrimination. We are still waiting for the official EHRC finding, so it is now a waiting game for many. 

My advice going forward is this: the election is a far too politically heated time to know the true intentions of a party or politicians, especially when this political bandying around has thrown minorities under the bus, divided us, and left certain groups vulnerable by sweeping some racism under the rug. We need to look at the structures in society that have let the situation become this bad (such as the hostile environment under the Conservatives) and begin to deconstruct them in order to see a brighter future.

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