THE NEXT general election might be this year. It might be as far away as January 2025. Either way, there’s a high chance that the Liberal Democrats will gain their first black MP in Josh Babarinde.

At just 29 years old, he is making waves as parliamentary candidate in the coastal town of Eastbourne, with some tipping him for a stellar Commons career.

Being touted as a future leader so early in their journey has proven a millstone to other politicians, such as Labour’s David Lammy when he won Tottenham in 2000, but Babarinde is certainly one to watch.

The Eastbourne-born social entrepreneur, raised on a working class housing estate, is running an effective and high-profile campaign in his hometown on issues like the cost of living crisis and effluent discharges into the sea.

Babarinde, who has a Nigerian father, took an unconventional route into politics. As a volunteer youth worker in east London, he sought to turn around the lives of gang members by offering them a business opportunity fixing mobile phones.

He explains: “I would go on to estates at stupid-O’clock at night. I would go wear a big black coat, and inside it there’s all this phone repair paraphernalia. So I was going into stairwells where lads were smoking weed at night, and would say ‘you can make cash from fixing phones, I can show you how, I can give you a demonstration right now’. 

“And some of them thought I was an undercover police officer, or thought ‘who is this dude, just rocking up on my estate?’ But there’d be some who would give me the time of day, so I got some of them signed up.”

His social enterprise, Cracked It, won contracts from several local authorities, and he won the prestigious Forbes 30 Under 30, recognising the leading entrepreneurs in Britain.

Such accolades were a far cry from Hampden Park, on the outskirts of the town, an area he now represents as a councillor.

Babarinde won his first election earlier than most, named as ‘Eastbourne’s cutest baby’ in the local newspaper, he reveals with a wry smile. His dad still has the clipping on his wall.

His parents separated when he was young and lived with his mother, although he saw a lot of his father too.

However, he adds: “Home life was tricky at times, for my mum and for me… home wasn’t always safe.” 

School, however, was a safe place, where he studied hard after being inspired by teacher Mrs Lynch.

He ran for election for Head Boy. “After I won, I thought, ‘Oh, okay, I gotta do something now.’ A lot of students wanted a non-uniform day, we hadn’t had one for five years, and I knew that I had the relationships with the teachers to possibly be able to secure it. I did a bit of lobbying, and they ended up saying yes.

“I wrote a letter to the pupils in the school saying, ‘This is going to be a non-uniform day, bring in a quid for charity. And I remember being really moved the day when it came. There were lots of kids in their own clothes, just having a great time in the school playground, and just really being themselves.

“And it was at that point, I thought, ‘Oh, wow, that’s what you can do if you’ve got something that you believe needs to happen and people want it to happen, you can help to make it happen’. That was a bit of a political awakening for me.”

Babarinde went on to graduate from the LSE in government studies, and was awarded an OBE aged 26, for his work across several social enterprises.  

Media-friendly and engaging, he is already turning into a familiar figure for East Sussex residents on regional TV news.

Having attended most schools in Eastbourne due to him and his mum having to move home regularly, he knows many people in the town personally. 

Eastbourne has been a Lib Dem-Tory marginal seat since 1906, and has see-sawed between the two parties in each of the last six elections.

Currently held by Tory MP Caroline Ansell, the smart money is on Babarinde winning the next contest with the political wind blowing in the Lib Dems favour in ‘blue wall’ seats.

Babarinde joined the Lib Dems at university because he really fancied their beer mat at a freshers fair but could only get one by signing up.

He faced some “real challenges” with his party during the Coalition, such as tuition fees, while recognising there were good things that were achieved, and spent this period concentrating on his social enterprises.

He cut his teeth on the campaign trail in the Labour stronghold of Bethnal Green and Bow, where he raised the Lib Dems vote in 2019.

A former vice-chair of his party’s Racial Diversity Campaign, he is determined the Lib Dems raise their game on representation and policy to appeal to black communities.

Astonishingly, the Lib Dems – and all their previous iterations such as the Liberals and SDP – have never had anyone of African, Caribbean or black mixed heritage background elected to public office above the level of local councillor.

That includes MPs, MEPs (Europe), MSPs (Scotland), AMs (London, Wales), executive and metro Mayors, and Police and Crime Commissioners. An embarrassing record for a party which elected the first MPs of colour, David Sombre in 1841 and Dadabhai Naoroji in 1892, both of Indian subcontinent descent.

In recent years the Lib Dems have publicly-lauded a number of black activists – one at a time – who were tipped by some to be MPs before fading from view, including Karen Hamilton, Pauline Pearce, and Lauren Pemberton-Nelson.

Chris Lucas came within a hair’s-breadth of winning the nomination in the Lib Dem-held seat of Bath, missing out twice amid suggestions of racism.

Finally, there is real hope of a breakthrough in black representation with Babarinde, an exceptional candidate who happened to be rooted in a town that just happened to be a Lib Dem stronghold.

While Babarinde is tipped to go far, the question remains whether black representation in the Lib Dems depends on the rare chance of several stars aligning, or whether barriers can be removed so that others can join where Babarinde seems destined to go.