THE POWER of the black vote could determine who gets the keys to Downing Street, according to our analysis using new population census data.

The myth that most African and Caribbean voters live in safe Labour seats could not be further from the truth.

One in every four black voters living in the top 100 constituencies with the highest black populations currently have a Conservative MP who will be defending a thin majority at the next election.

There are 21 Tory marginals where the black vote can make the difference in these key battlegrounds, and the black population is higher than the MPs majority in 17 of those constituencies.

Recent census data showing the African and Caribbean population has risen to four million has boosted the potential impact of the black vote relative to MPs winning margins in the 2019 election.

Analysis by The Voice reveals almost three quarters (74) of the top 100 seats where the black community live, can be swung one way or the other.

In London, 35 of the 73 constituencies have a black population larger than the majority of the sitting MP. 

In the towns of Milton Keynes, Luton, Wolverhampton and Coventry – which all have two MPs each – the black vote towers over the MP’s majority in every single seat.

Rev Al Sharpton to the UK next week to help kickstart the biggest voter registration drive yet, as a guest of Lord Simon Woolley, who was director of Operation Black Vote for almost three decades.

Lord Woolley told The Voice: “As always, elections are won and lost by small margins. Those small margins can easily be decided by the black vote. That’s why I’m urging black voters to register to vote, for a greater voice, for greater equality. It takes three minutes. We can decide who has the keys to Downing Street.”

While Politico’s poll of polls has Labour enjoying a whopping 21-point lead in England, which could give Sir Keir Starmer a 200-plus landslide, sober political observers predict the result will be much closer.

A more realistic outcome considering Boris Johnson won with a majority of 80 at the last election, is Starmer squeaking home with a narrow 30-plus Labour majority.

That means there is all to play for, and while the black vote is famously the most loyal to Labour – 64 percent of ‘BAME’ voters went for Jeremy Corbyn over 20 percent for Johnson – even moderate swings in the black vote could sway the next result.

In Chingford and Woodford Green, the black vote is seven times the size of the majority held by former Tory leader and architect of Universal Credit, Sir Iain Duncan Smith.

Kensington, a seat that includes Grenfell, is held by Tory Felicity Buchan, who clings to a wafer-thin majority of 150, a figure dwarfed by almost 9,000 black voters and another 3,000 black mixed heritage voters.

Other vulnerable Tories include Home Office minister Chris Philip in Croydon South, Northern Ireland minister and leading Brexiteer Steve Baker (Wycombe), and Environment Secretary Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet).

Labour MPs who could find themselves unemployed if they lost the support of black voters include Liz Kendall in Leicester West (4,000 majority and 7,000 black voters), and Wes Streeting in Ilford North (5,000 majority and 8,000 black voters).

Of the 100 seats with the highest black population only six have black MPs, with a seventh almost guaranteed with Miatta Fahnbullah running for Labour in Camberwell and Peckham.

One of those current six, Paulette Hamilton won the Birmingham Erdington byelection for Labour last year, told The Voice: “It’s truly important that the black vote is taken seriously.

“We’ve been in this country a long time and at the moment the black vote is feeling ignored by all parties. We need to educate and develop our communities to understand politics, so that politicians know they can’t take the black vote for granted.”

In the top 100 constituencies with the highest black populations, only 12 could be considered genuinely safe seats. 

There are a further 20 seats where the Labour majority is over 15,000 – which might be considered ‘safe’ – but where the black population is still larger than the sitting MP’s majority.

Experts say the power of the black vote in marginal battlegrounds is the result of a long-running trend of black families moving out of ‘inner city heartlands’ to more suburban areas, partly by choice and partly by displacement such as rents and property prices.

In London, the black influence on seats like Enfield North, Enfield Southgate and Hendon are reflections of that. 

The black population has also rapidly increased in marginals like Thurrock, in Essex, where Tory Jackie Doyle-Price’s 11,400 majority would have been just about comfortable if it were not for the rising African population which is larger in number than her majority.

TV presenter Sylbourne Sydial, who has stood for the Conservatives as a local council candidate, questioned whether the ‘power of the black vote’ assumed all black people vote one way.

He said: “I may not think the same way as other black persons, and the other black person might not think the same way as me. Sometimes I believe it’s a fallacy to think as black people we should all be thinking the same way.”

One seat on the outskirts of London where the black vote may have contributed to an increased Labour majority is Barking, where MP Margaret Hodge is retiring. 

The Labour candidate who hopes to replace her is Darren Rodwell, a white local councillor who caused uproar last year when, as mayor, he turned up to a Black History Month in furry lion slippers and joked about having “the worst tan possible for a black man”, and “the passion for the rhythm of Africa and the Caribbean.”

He went on to  suggest he used to do “swing dance” and “jiggling about”, and pronounced African as ‘Afrikaan’ – similar to how white Afrikaaners in South Africa describe themselves. Rodwell later apologised.

Hodge has a 15,400 majority, which is dwarfed by 24,700 black and 3,100 black mixed heritage voters.

Tamkeen Shaikh, who ran as Conservative candidate in Barking in 2019, said: “You cannot take anyone for granted. I come across a lot of voters who have not made up their minds, they want to know ‘what are you going to do for us?’”

The Voice analysis of the potential impact of the black vote coincides with news that Labour have a new race equality policy group, which includes Baroness Doreen Lawrence (see page 10).

Our findings indicate the power of the black vote is greater than previously thought, and in a tight election could effectively be ‘the casting vote’ over who gets the keys to Number 10.

The impact of the black electorate will be greater still with a rise in voter turnout. Turnout and voter registration are lower than the national average, and there is fear that the new voter ID rules will amount to US-style ‘voter suppression’ that impacts on black and young voters the most.

Rashid Nix, a former Green Party candidate who filmed the 2010 documentary ‘Why Don’t Black People Vote?’ said: “We, as a community, what we are dealing with is so much we often don’t have the capacity to get organised politically.

“The conversations that dominate are gang and knife crime, racism, and whatever idiotic social media discussion is taking place at that particular moment in time; be it flippin’ Meghan and Harry, Celebrity Love Island, or the Premier League. Really foolish conversations.

“But then you ask ‘who is your local MP or councillor?’ and you get blank stares. We have been completely distracted by frivolity.

“We have the capacity to completely change society, in terms of fashion and music and stuff like that. But politically, where we can really have an impact, we don’t have an impact. 

“The political parties actually don’t want black people to vote, and we’re fulfilling what they want us to do, which is to not come with our demands at the ballot box.

“When we start putting forward an agenda which serves the needs of us as a community, as a group of people, then it becomes problematic.”

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