Ethnic minorities in British politics:candidate selection and clan politics in the Labour Party

Abstract

In increasingly diverse polities, the question of how minorities engage with national and local political processes is important. In the U.K., the Labour Party has traditionally benefited electorally from ethnic minority communities, often through ethnicity-based voting blocs. However, little attention has been paid to how the Party’s candidate selection process is influenced by strategic party membership and nomination. We argue that community clan or kinship (biraderi) networks found amongst British Pakistanis have been mobilised for this purpose. We examine the cases of Bradford and Birmingham with respect to the nominations for Prospective Candidates at both parliamentary and local council level. We show the continued importance of biraderi connections in spite of Labour Party attempts to ‘clean up’ selection contests through impositions of the National Executive Committee (NEC). Such practices favour the selection of candidates with strong biraderi links and, as such, often marginalise female candidates.

Publication DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2018.1443804
Divisions: College of Business and Social Sciences > School of Social Sciences & Humanities
College of Business and Social Sciences > School of Social Sciences & Humanities > Politics, History and International Relations
College of Business and Social Sciences > School of Social Sciences & Humanities > Aston Centre for Europe
Additional Information: This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis Group in Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies on 4 Mar 2018, available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/1369183X.2018.1443804 Funding: Moray Endowment Fund.
Uncontrolled Keywords: Biraderi,Labour Party,candidate selection,ethnic minority politics,kinship networks,Demography,Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous)
Publication ISSN: 1469-9451
Last Modified: 30 Sep 2024 11:29
Date Deposited: 16 Mar 2018 12:30
Full Text Link:
Related URLs: https://www.tan ... 3X.2018.1443804 (Publisher URL)
http://www.scop ... tnerID=8YFLogxK (Scopus URL)
PURE Output Type: Article
Published Date: 2019-08-18
Published Online Date: 2018-03-14
Accepted Date: 2018-02-18
Authors: Akhtar, Parveen (ORCID Profile 0000-0002-2663-7398)
Peace, Timothy

Download

[img]

Version: Accepted Version


Export / Share Citation


Statistics

Additional statistics for this record