Labour is overhauling its outreach efforts to British Indians, amid concern that the party’s support among the country’s largest ethnic minority has slumped in recent years.
Keir Starmer’s party has taken a series of measures designed to reconnect with British Indians, including hiring two community outreach volunteers, revamping the Labour Friends of India group and organising a trip to India for two of its senior shadow ministers.
There is growing evidence that Labour has lost the support of people of Indian descent. In 2010, 61% of British Indians said they supported Labour, but a survey seen by the Guardian shows by 2019 that figure had dropped to just 30%.
One party official said: “We’ve taken Indian voters for granted for years, but it’s becoming increasingly obvious they are going elsewhere and we need to do something about that.”
A party spokesperson said: “Keir Starmer’s changed Labour party is back in the service of working people and continues to engage with people of all background and faiths – including our Indian communities.”
The measures being taken by party supporters include setting up a new group called Labour Indians to organise community events and target messages to British Indians on social media.
Krish Raval, the group’s chair, said: “As a canvassing umbrella initiative focused on event organisation and social media dissemination, we’re looking to serve the widest group of stakeholders to ensure a Labour victory.”
Two volunteers have been hired to work with the group, with part of their work focused on briefing Labour parliamentary candidates on issues of importance to India.
On Sunday the shadow foreign secretary, David Lammy, and the shadow business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, will travel to Delhi and Mumbai on a five-day trip also designed to demonstrate the party is not hostile to Indian interests.
Indians are the second-largest immigrant group in the UK, and the largest minority-ethnic group.
For years nearly two-thirds of British Indians supported Labour, in line with other minority-ethnic groups.
But that has fallen sharply in recent years, with a new survey from the thinktank UK in a Changing Europe showing that in 2019 only 30% voted for the opposition party, not many more than the 24% who voted Conservative.
Experts say the shift has come about partly for socioeconomic reasons and partly for religious ones.
As British Indians have become richer in recent years, survey data shows their attitudes have become more conservative. Meanwhile, the rise of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) in India has fuelled a more assertive conservatism among Indians in the UK.
The UK in a Changing Europe survey shows that most Hindus who voted in the 2019 election supported the Tories, which was not the case for Muslim, Sikh or Buddhist voters.
These long-term trends were exacerbated by Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour party, given his support for an independent Kashmir – a view that is highly unpopular among Indian Hindus. In 2019, activists for the BJP actively campaigned for the Tories in more than 40 seats across the UK, fuelling accusations of Indian government meddling in British democracy.
Senior Labour figures worry that having Rishi Sunak as Britain’s first Hindu prime minister could increase the trend.
Focus groups carried out late last year among first-, second- and third-generation Indians by the consultancy Public First showed the problem facing Labour.
One participant said Sunak’s position showed the “tables were turning” for British Indians, while another commented: “It’s really good how he’s brought the Indian community into the traditions of 10 Downing Street.”
James Frayne, a founding partner at Public First, said: “We found these groups to be much more positive towards Rishi Sunak than the average, predominantly white British swing voter group.”
