• 1 Norris, P., Inglehart, R. (2019) Cultural Backlash: Trump, Brexit, and Authoritarian Populism, New (...)
• 2 Following Mudde’s influential work, this article defines populism as “an ideology that considers so (...)
• 3 Schwartz, C., Simon, M., and al. (2021) “A populist paradox? How Brexit softened anti-immigrant att (...)
• 4 Evans, G., Menon, A. (2017) Brexit and British Politics, Cambridge, Polity Press.

1Brexit has arguably been the most polarising event in contemporary British history, resulting in a ‘cultural backlash’1 and persistent tensions over values and identity. Last year’s massive demonstration in London, which gathered as many as 150,000 protesters on Saturday 13 September 2025, showed that Brexit did not soften populism2 or anti-immigration feelings, as some research had suggested3. Instead, it cemented dividing lines over immigration and diversity that have reshaped political attitudes and disrupted party allegiances4.

• 5 Lipset, Seymour M., Rokkan, S. (1967) Party Systems and Voter Alignments: Cross-National Perspectiv (...)
• 6 Dalton, R., (1984) “Cognitive mobilization and partisan dealignments in advanced industrial democra (...)
• 7 Key, V.O. (1955) “A Theory of Critical Elections”, The Journal of Politics, 17 (1), 3-18.
• 8 Kriesi, H., Bornschier, S. et al. (2008) West European Politics in the Age of Globalization, Cambri (...)
• 9 Ford, R., Goodwin, M. (2014) Revolt on the Right: Explaining Support for the Radical Right in Brita (...)
• 10 Sobolewska, M., Ford, R. (2020) Brexitland, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
• 11 Tilley, J. and Hobolt, S. (2023) “Brexit as an identity: political identities and policy norms”, Po (...)

2In classical alignment theory, voting behaviour is defined by durable social cleavages such as class, religion, and territory, which structure durable political loyalties.5 However, more recent scholarship has shown that social change has weakened these inherited alignments, triggering processes of dealignment—that is, the erosion of long-standing partisan attachments and the growth of electoral volatility6. At the same time, dealignment may trigger new forms of electoral realignment that result in or are characterised by a more durable political alignment7. Contemporary literature has highlighted the role of a new globalisation cleavage in shaping such realignments, polarising societies between the winners and losers of the global economy8. In the British context, this cleavage was mobilised through the ‘left behind’ narrative, which referred to socially and culturally marginalised groups within the white working class reacting against liberal elites, immigration and cosmopolitan norms9. The literature on Brexit also converges on the idea that the referendum illuminated a shift from the traditional left–right cleavage structuring social classes to a political system structured by a values divide opposing ‘identity liberals’ and ‘social conservatives’10, thereby producing persistent social identities and heightening affective polarisation11.

• 12 Martin, N. S. (Accepted/In press) Ethnic minority voters and the 2024 general election. Parliamenta (...)
• 13 Heath, A., Fisher, S. D., et al. (2013) The political integration of ethnic minorities in Britain, (...)
• 14 While this article refers more broadly to ethnic minority voters, its empirical focus is primarily (...)

3However, while much of the existing research has focused on white population disaffection, the political transformation spotlighted by Brexit also reconfigured ethnic minority voting patterns. Representing approximately 14% of the British electorate12, ethnic minority voters were long aligned with the Labour Party, owing to their social and economic position, their experiences of discrimination, and Labour’s historical commitment to multiculturalism and anti-discrimination policies13. Focusing on British Asian voters14, this article suggests that the values and identity divides that fractured the white electorate between ‘identity liberals’ and ‘social conservatives’ have progressively triggered uneven processes of electoral dealignment and realignment within the ethnic minority electorate as well.

• 15 Marr, A. (2017) “Anywheres vs Somewheres: the split that made Brexit inevitable”, New Statesman, ht (...)
• 16 In using the word “elites”, this article refers to political actors who occupy positions of power a (...)
• 17 Goodwin M. (2023) Values, Voice and Virtue, Penguin Books, p. 33.
• 18 Sobolewska, M. et Ford, R. (2020) Brexitland, p. 2.

5In explaining this seismic event, described by BBC journalist Andrew Marr as ‘the biggest democratic rebellion in modern British history15, the ‘left behind’ narrative has become central to media and academic analyses. As social and economic changes have affected specific groups in British society, resentment against mainstream politics has intensified. Many perceive the new elites16 as having imposed a political revolution on the country, one with irreversible effects, leading to a global economy, mass immigration, and the transfer of power, decision-making, and control to supranational institutions17. However, beyond its socio-economic interpretation, Brexit reflects deep divisions over identity issues, which, in the words of Sobolewska and Ford, have been the cumulative results of cross-cutting factors linked to changing demographics and education that were building in the electorate for decades.18 Within this framework, divisions over identity and values became key axes of political conflict, representing the main lines through which ‘belonging’ was redefined by the Leave campaign.

• 19 Yuval Davis, N. (2011) The Politics of Belonging: Intersectional Contestations, London, Sage Public (...)
• 20 Bhambra, Gurminder K. (2017) “Brexit, Trump, and ‘methodological whiteness’: on the misrecognition (...)

6As Yuval-Davis argues, the politics of belonging illuminate how boundaries are constructed and mobilised in political discourse, allowing populist actors to transform questions of values and identity into lines of exclusion19. Populist actors have been particularly enthusiastic about mobilising this strategy to redefine the ‘national home’ in narrow cultural and ethnic terms. By framing belonging as threatened by external forces – e.g. migrants, supranational institutions or religious minorities – populists construct a homogenised ‘people’ whose identity must be defended against outsiders. Bhambra further notes that this strategic narrative, grounded on a ‘methodological whiteness,’ has allowed ‘calls for racial self-interest by the dominant groups to be seen as legitimate and not to be labelled as racist’20.

• 21 Sobolewska, M., Ford, R. (2020), Brexitland, p. 342.

7Since the 2000s, successive crises over national identity in the UK have repeatedly reactivated the question of belonging within political debate, reflecting anxieties over immigration, multiculturalism and the meaning of Britishness in a globalised society. In the context of Brexit, the instrumentalisation of immigration by the populist party UKIP – which displayed posters depicting Syrian refugees massing on the Slovenian border with the headline ‘Breaking point: The EU has failed us all’ – was presented as a legitimate source of concern over public services being overwhelmed by the influx of refugees. Further drawing on this logic of ‘methodological whiteness,’ UKIP also strategically exploited the allegation that Turkey, whose repeated attempts to join the EU had been turned down, would soon be part of the EU. This raised the fear of the EU potentially enlarging its boundaries and, in so doing, bringing the threat of extremism to British territory. Much of UKIP’s rhetoric conflated the issue of extremism with that of immigration, translating anxieties into a ‘Muslim threat’ and mobilising exclusionary views by presenting Muslims as a ‘distinctive out-group’: a threatening and dangerous ‘them’ against whom the Brexit project would serve as the defence of a national ‘us’21.

• 22 Sobolewska, M., Ford, R. (2020), ibid, p. 45.

8These narratives inevitably influenced ethnic minority voting behaviour. Sobolewska and Ford suggest that ethnic minorities’ experiences of hostility and of being the target of populist discourse have shaped their political priorities, making them ‘necessity liberals’ even though many simultaneously share the socially conservative values associated with identity conservatives22.

• 23 Begum, N. (2018) “Minority ethnic attitudes and the 2006 EU referendum”, UK in a changing Europe, h (...)

9However, despite the Brexit campaign’s racist tone and the wave of physical and verbal aggression it triggered, the project to leave the EU attracted a significant share of minorities. Although many commentators took their votes for granted, assuming they overwhelmingly supported Remain, 30% of ethnic minorities supported the Brexit project, with striking variations observed between and within the same ethnic groups. For instance, among Asian voters, those of Indian background were nearly twice as likely to support Leave when compared to other minority groups, making them the second most supportive of Brexit after the white British. Meanwhile, Blacks, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis were the most supportive of Remain23.

• 27 Khan, O., Weekes-Bernard, D. (2015), p. 20.

13The report further highlights ethnic minorities’ limited identification with a European ‘shared identity,’ explaining that ethnic minorities tended to view Europe ‘in explicitly ethnic or racial terms, identifying “fortress Europe” [as] a way of keeping out non-white immigrants while allowing significant levels of European immigration’27.

• 28 Burnett, J. (2016) Racial violence and the Brexit State, Institute of Race Relations, Foreword, p. (...)

15Finally, it may be suggested that the Leave vote among ethnic minorities is not paradoxical and should be reassessed and reinterpreted in light of the tone of the campaign, which may have affected the proportion of ethnic minority Leave voters. In his report for the Institute of Race Relations, Burnett notes that ‘whatever else Brexit means or does not mean, it certainly means racism’28. The violence of the campaign, perceived by many as a civil war stained by hate crimes and the murder of Jo Cox, a pro-Remain Labour MP, just one week before the vote, inevitably made ethnic minorities prioritise policies.

• 29 UK Parliament, Evidence on Islamophobia, 2019, https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/991 (...)

16Muslims in particular, against whom a disproportionate increase in acts of hatred was reported29, viewed EU institutions as more effective gatekeepers against discrimination, despite the UK already having strong equality and anti-discrimination legislative frameworks. Grassroots mobilisation during the campaign raised awareness about the dangers involved in leaving the EU, which would mean losing the protection guaranteed by EU laws.

• 30 Institute of Race Relations, BME statistics on poverty and deprivation, 2024, https://irr.org.uk/re (...)

17Additionally, while ethnic minorities might have been expected to vote Leave given their higher levels of economic deprivation30, the Brexit vote was not so much seized as an opportunity to express economic resentment, as with the ‘left behind’, but rather to mobilise and reject the anti-diversity stance defended in populist rhetoric. Therefore, their overall attitude towards Brexit, as well as the significant Remain vote recorded among these groups, should be reconsidered in light of the campaign’s nativist framing.

• 31 Carmines, E. G, Stimson, J. A (1989) “On the structure and Sequence of Issue Evolution”, The Americ (...)

18The Brexit referendum exemplified a broad process of realignment in which values, identity and belonging replaced traditional socio-economic cleavages as the dominant structuring force of electoral politics. In their seminal work on the American context, Carmines and Stimson state that the issues of race and identity can drive what they term ‘issue evolution,’ which is ‘a process by which a new issue emerges into the political agenda, provokes elite polarisation, and gradually mass political realignments, producing a new partisan cleavage’31. They argue that the primary evidence of such a process at the level of the mass electorate lies in the growing polarisation between partisan supporters on the issue dimension. In the British context, the identity divide between leavers and remainers has followed a similar trajectory, creating a new structuring axis of political conflict. This is evidenced by the 2017 and 2019 elections, which served as new referenda on the 2016 vote.

• 32 May, T. (2017) speech at the Conservative party Conference.
• 33 Ibid.

20After UKIP’s collapse, and after measuring the political incentives that ‘playing the identity card’ could offer, the Conservative Party strategically reclaimed key discursive elements of the dying UKIP to keep the Brexit divide alive and capitalise on Leave voters. Addressing this new coalition of voters in her speech at the 2017 Conservative conference, Theresa May first reaffirmed that ‘Brexit means Brexit,’ reasserting the will of the people and positioning herself as the voice of a newly redefined national majority. Instrumentalising populist rhetoric, she opposed ‘the privileged few’ in relation to ‘the ordinary working class,’ denouncing those who found people’s patriotism distasteful and their concerns about immigration ‘parochial’32. In an open attack, she also reminded liberal cosmopolites that ‘if you believe you are a citizen of the world, you are a citizen of nowhere. You don’t understand what the very word “citizenship” means.’33 This recast national belonging as rooted and culturally homogeneous, implicitly excluding identities shaped by immigration. In the run-up to the 2017 general election, known as the ‘Brexit election’, the Conservatives and Theresa May’s advisers attempted to cling to social conservatives and capitalise on possible realignments from blue-collar pro-Brexit voters from UKIP and Labour in the North and Midlands.

• 34 Martin, N. S., & Sobolewska, M. (2023) “The End of the Ethnic Bloc Vote? Ethnic Minority Leavers Af (...)
• 35 The Runnymede Trust (2019), Ethnic Minorities at the 2017 British General Election, https://cdn.pro (...)
• 36 Fact figures published in 2022 report that households in the Indian ethnic group (41%) were most li (...)

21The 2017 general election provides insights into ethnic minorities’ political reconfiguration (or lack thereof) according to the Leave–Remain divide. Data and surveys published on ethnic minority voting reveal a continuing polarisation between and within ethnic groups, but a low level of political realignment among ethnic groups, with ethnic minority leavers leaning towards their traditional political loyalties34. However, British Indian voters stand out in this context. Notably, a significant proportion realigned with the Conservative Party, increasing their support from 30% in 2010 to 40% in 201735. This shift is to be interpreted along their socio-economic trajectory. The UK’s Asian population of Indian background have known economic and social mobility, which makes them the most economically prosperous ethnic group. They also have the highest proportion of graduates (49% hold a university degree compared to 39% nationally), and are the most highly represented in professional occupations, with a median income superior to the white British population.36 British Indians, particularly those of the middle class, have been drawn to the Conservatives’ emphasis on entrepreneurship and social conservatism, in line with their upward mobility.

• 37 Griffiths, M., Yeo, C. (2021) “the UK’s hostile environment: deputizing immigration control”, Criti (...)
• 38 British Future (2017) Mind the gap: How the ethnic minority vote cost Theresa May her majority, p.4 (...)

22Despite its fading support among ethnic minorities since 1997, the Labour Party still secured 77% of their votes, compared to 80–90% in 1997. However, this apparent success should be interpreted in light of the Conservatives’ narratives of exclusion at both the discursive (as previously discussed) and policy levels. For instance, the fight against illegal migration through the hostile policies put forward by Theresa May, as well as the emerging Windrush scandal that led to the unfair treatment of undocumented people of Caribbean background, all contributed to fostering a climate of suspicion and exclusion toward ethnic minorities37. Available data show Conservatives’ poor performance among ethnic minority voters, even alienating the progress they made under David Cameron’s leadership38.

• 39 Ibid.
• 40 British Future (2017) Mind the gap: How the ethnic minority vote cost Theresa May her majority, p.4

23Research by British Future further underlines that the decline in ethnic minority support for Conservatives was so detrimental that the loss of the Conservative majority in 2017 can be correlated with the loss of ethnic minority votes39. Lord Ashcroft’s large election-day poll notes that the Conservatives were half as likely to gain the support of non-white voters compared to their white British counterparts. This research estimates that even halving the ethnic vote gap would have made the difference between a minority and a majority government. Most strikingly, the report suggests that in a scenario in which the Conservatives secured 32% of the ethnic minority vote, they would still trail Labour by over 20 points among non-white voters. Nonetheless, this would have been sufficient to win ten additional seats that went to Labour in 2017, thereby sparing Theresa May from having to rely on minor parties to govern40.

• 41 Tournier-Sol, Karine (2023) Playing the Identity card: from Brexit to Culture wars, Observatoire de (...)
• 42 Montgomerie, T. (2019) “The future Conservatism”, Prospect, https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/essa (...)
• 43 O’Carroll, L. (2019) “Campaigners attack Boris Johnson for EU national remarks”, The Guardian, http (...)
• 44 Alexander Scott, C. (2020) The Trumpification of the Conservative party, Open Democracy, https://ww (...)
• 45 The British Future, Minorities Report: The Attitudes of Britain’s Ethnic Minority Population, 2024, (...)
• 46 Ibid. p. 19.

24The 2019 general election, conducted by the Conservatives with the goal of ‘getting Brexit done,’ continued to mobilise the dynamics of the ‘culture wars’41 and populist discourse in which Remainers were accused of intentionally blocking the will of the people. Describing the party’s post-Brexit shift, conservative commentator Tim Montgomerie observed that ‘the magnetism of national sovereignty has finally overtaken the magnetism of free markets’42. The Conservative Party’s strategy to appeal to workers while simultaneously committing itself to the defence of nationalism and social conservatism, as manifested and expressed through its multiple attacks on ‘woke culture’ and anti-racism campaigns, maintained the electoral coalition. Boris Johnson’s move to the right on cultural issues, complaining about European migrants treating ‘the UK as though it’s basically part of their country,’43 Black people smiling like ‘watermelons’ or describing veiled Muslim women as ‘letter boxes’ were seen as a Trumpification of the party44. In a similar vein, allegations made by Conservative ethnic minority MPs themselves, such as Sajid Javid’s assertion that ‘there is a growing Islamist ideology that hates our way of life and seeks to divide us’ in a stigmatisation of Muslims, formed part of the party strategy to capitalise on working class northern areas and keep identity conflicts structuring electoral behaviour in Britain more powerfully than traditional economic class-based variables. The landslide victory on election day revealed a clear plebiscite for the Conservative Party, marking a pivotal moment in Britain’s ongoing political realignment, with the party gaining formerly safe Labour seats in the Red Wall. Though Brexit remained a predictor of the majority population’s vote, data published by British Future showed declining support and signs of fragmentation in the ethnic minority support for Conservatives. While the party retained two-thirds of its previous votes, it mainly consolidated the support of Indian voters, particularly those identifying as Hindus45. By contrast, it failed to attract Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Black Caribbean voters, even where they had supported Brexit. In explaining ethnic minority voters’ aversion to voting Conservative, analysis from the Minorities Report suggests that there is in fact little difference in the reasons given for not voting Conservative between white respondents and those from ethnic minority backgrounds. The survey reveals that, overall, non-white respondents are just as likely to explain that the Conservative Party represents ‘the interest[s] of the rich and powerful’ and ‘does not share [the respondent’s] values’ but represents ‘right wing nationalism’46.

• 47 House of Commons Library, “2024 general election : turnout”, https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/g (...)
• 48 Dassonneville, R. (2013) “Electoral volatility, political sophistication, trust and efficacy: A stu (...)
• 49 In her work The Concept of Representation published in 1972, Hanna Pitkin distinguishes between des (...)
• 50 Sobolewska, M., McKee, R., and Campbell, R. (2018) “Explaining motivation to represent: how does de (...)
• 51 Griffiths, James D. and Perrett, S. (2025) “The Brexit realignment amid electoral volatility: The R (...)

26The fragmentation of the ethnic minority vote gained momentum in the 2024 general election, one of the most volatile contests on record. The election was characterised by a low turnout, with participation estimated at 43% among ethnic minority voters compared with 59% among white voters, the lowest registered since 200147. According to Dassonneville, volatility reflects both the weakening of traditional partisan attachments and a broader crisis of political trust and representation48. The theoretical mechanism between descriptive representation (i.e., the resemblance between representatives and the represented in terms of identity or background) and substantive representation (i.e., the defence of voters’ interests or issues through policy and action)49 has been well established by empirical research.50 While descriptive representation once reinforced Labour’s image as the natural home for minority voters, the party’s capacity to provide substantive representation through the defence of those voters’ interests and values has increasingly been called into question. This theoretical distinction helps to shed light on the factors behind the sharp decline in Labour’s support in 2024, especially among British Muslim voters, and the consolidation of Indian voters’ realignment towards the Conservatives. These shifts occurred in a context in which the Labour Party won a landslide victory in Parliament, regaining most of the Red Wall seats they lost to the Conservatives in 2019 – but with only 33.6% of the vote, as opposed to the 43.6% of the vote that Boris Johnson secured in 201951.

• 52 IPSOS Mori, “How Britain voted in the 2024 election”, https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/uk-opinion-polls/ (...)
• 53 Ibid.
• 54 Ibid.
• 55 House of Commons Library (2025) “Ethnic diversity in politics and public life”, https://commonslibr (...)

27Labour’s share of the votes among ethnic minorities fell by 18%, standing at just 46%, thereby substantially narrowing the gap between ethnic minority and white voters’ support for Labour, estimated at 33%52. This gap is even smaller when compared with Labour support among Asian voters, which dropped to only 39%53. Black voters were the only group that continued to express strong support, with 68% still voting for Labour in 202454. These results stand in sharp contrast with the historical record number of 66 Labour MPs from ethnic minority backgrounds elected in 202455.

• 56 IPSOS Mori, “How Britain voted in the 2024 election”.

28Although Conservative support fell by 3% compared to 2019, this decline remained limited and did not translate into a collapse comparable to Labour’s losses. The party nonetheless secured 17 % of the overall ethnic minority vote and 18% of the Asian vote. Interestingly, the results also point to the rising support for minor parties: the Green Party increased its appeal among ethnic minority voters by 9% compared to 2019 (i.e., from 2% of voters to 11%), relegating the Liberal Democrats —whose support fell by 4%, from 12% in 2019 to 8% in 2024— to fourth place. This election also marked a modest but noticeable increase in support for Reform UK among ethnic minority voters, rising from 2% to 3%56.

• 57 Mohyuddin, Z. (2024) “Conservative support among Chinese and Hindu voters presents opportunity and (...)
• 58 UK in a changing Europe (2024) Minorities report, p. 5 and p. 64.

29Overall, this election magnifies the realignment of Indian voters, who are clearly shifting towards the right of the political spectrum. A survey on ethnic minorities’ political attitudes shows that, among Asian voters, Chinese and Indian Hindu voters were more likely to vote Conservative, with the party winning one in five Chinese votes and one-third of Hindu votes57. A particularly telling example of this inroad is the Conservative victory in Leicester East, home to the largest Hindu population of any constituency in England, where the MP of Indian descent Shivani Raja took over a seat that had been held by Labour since 1987. Similar Conservative gains among Hindu voters were also observed in Harrow East, where Conservative MP Bob Blackman retained his seat with an increased majority. This progression was particularly visible among highly educated individuals, whose views on the economy increasingly aligned with the Conservative Party’s ideology. Moreover, the dynamics of class mobility and discourse on meritocracy strongly resonated with these individuals. In this respect, the Minorities Report underlines that class cleavages are, in fact, becoming more salient among non-white voters than among white voters. The report further highlights that “the demography of right and left is vastly different between white and non-white voters”: while non-graduate white voters have been drifting to the right over the past two decades, non-white graduate voters are proportionately more likely to be Conservative and to hold right-leaning economic values.58 However, this analysis should be supplemented by more detailed studies examining how the intersection of ethnicity, age, and education shapes ethnic minority voting behaviour, as well as how the UK’s demographic changes are likely to affect British political life in the future.

• 59 Cameron, D. (2015) Speech on opportunities for ethnic minority Britons, London. https://www.gov.uk/ (...)
• 60 The 1928 Institute (2025) Identity, Representation and Policy Priorities: The British Indian Census(...)

30This ‘right turn’ can also be understood in light of how the Conservative Party addressed the representation of ethnic diversity within their own ranks under Boris Johnson. Over the years, the party has been particularly assiduous in appointing ethnic minority ministers to some of the most prestigious cabinet positions, including Priti Patel at the Home Office, and culminating with the appointment of Rishi Sunak as Prime Minister. This ultimately confirmed David Cameron’s prediction that the Conservatives would ‘be the party of the first black or Asian prime minister’59. These political figures embodied a set of values that strongly resonated with many British Indians, including hard work, entrepreneurship, family responsibility, educational achievement and social mobility. Many of these politicians projected narratives of self-reliance and meritocracy, highlighting their rise from modest or immigrant family backgrounds to positions of national leadership. Moreover, the Conservative Party’s social conservatism and focus on law, order, family values and patriotism appealed to socially conservative segments of the Indian diaspora, particularly among the middle-class. Traditional loyalty to the Labour Party has inevitably eroded as this community becomes more established and aligned with social conservatism and nationalism, the two red flags of Brexit leavers. Recent research also reveals a sharp increase in Indian voters’ support for the Reform UK Party, from 4% to 13%. This is a trend that is likely to persist in the coming years60.

• 61 UK in a changing Europe (2024) Minorities report, p.12.
• 62 Jayanetti, C. (2024) “Labour sends activists to 13 seats where it fears losing Muslim voters over G (...)
• 63 Akhtar, P. (2024) “Election 2024: Labour’s Gaza stance has driven many Muslim candidates to stand a (...)
• 64 UK Parliament (2024) Election result for Bethnal Green and Stepney, https://members.parliament.uk/c (...)

32In 2024, Labour’s vote share among British Muslim voters fell by 28%, marking a significant shift in political allegiance. This disaffection was also indicated by increased support for the Green Party among British Muslim voters, reaching 12%61. Yet the most unexpected development was the election of five Muslim independent candidates to formerly safe Labour seats, often defeating Muslim Labour incumbents. This was the case in the Birmingham Perry Barr constituency, where Ayoub Khan ended the 21-year tenure of Muslim Labour Khalid Mahmood. Another striking example was the historic victory of independent candidate Iqbal Mohamed in Dewsbury and Batley, defeating Labour’s Heather Iqbal. A survey has shown that Labour has been losing significant ground in some previously safe constituencies despite increased activist presence.62 In the 21 constituencies in which more than 30% of the population is Muslim, Labour’s share of the vote ultimately dropped by 29% from an average of 65% in 2019 to 36% in 202463. Even when Labour candidates succeeded in keeping their seats, they did so with a strongly reduced share of the votes. For example, in the Bethnal Green and Stepney constituency, Labour MP Rushanara Ali’s share of the vote was 34.1% (a decline of 39.4% compared to 2019), with independent candidate Ajmal Masroor securing 30.5% of the votes and the Green Party candidate winning third place with 13.7% of the votes (an increase of 9.5% from the previous election)64.

• 65 Taylor, C. (1992) Multiculturalism and the politics of recognition, Princeton, Princeton University (...)

33These election results suggest that Muslim political behaviour was primarily shaped by a growing lack of political trust in Labour MPs, even when they shared the same religion and represented their interests. The aforementioned case of Birmingham Perry Barr is particularly instructive in this respect. It suggests that neither ethnicity nor religion determines one candidate’s election, but rather the capacity to defend Muslims’ interests, which are no longer crystallised in the politics of recognition65 but rather framed in terms of moral registers.

• 66 UK government (2023) Ethnicity facts and figures, https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.u (...)
• 67 The Electoral Commission (2001) Voter engagement among black and minority ethnic communities, IPSOS (...)

36Ethnic minorities are disproportionately young66, and include a growing number of graduates. Unlike white graduates, who tend to lean left and towards socially liberal positions, ethnic graduates are more likely to be conservative, adopting a less liberal position on diversity and cultural issues, and holding right-leaning economic values. Taken together, these trends point to the potential for further processes of electoral realignment; but their consolidation will depend on lifting the barriers to registration and turnout. The Electoral Commission estimates that 87% of white people who are entitled to vote are registered, compared with 80% of Asian people and 72% of Black people67.

• 68 YouGov (2025) “What do Britain’s ethnic minorities think of British politics” https://yougov.co.uk/ (...)

37Finally, political representation is a key factor among ethnic minority voters. At the time of writing, YouGov opinion polls reveal largely negative opinions of Keir Starmer among ethnic minority populations, with 61% expressing an unfavourable opinion of the Prime Minister and 55% having a similarly negative view of the Labour Party. This disaffection with the party is even higher among Pakistanis and Bangladeshis (59%) and among Indians (63%).68 This opinion poll may signal the end of Labour’s hegemony, and the next election therefore promises to be one of the most unpredictable contests in recent British political history.