However although ethnic minorities tend to have a strong partisan alignment with labour they have a low voter turnout. However in the 2001 election Britain saw the lowest voter turnout since 1918 with only 57% of the electorate turning out to vote. So you could argue that by not turning out to vote they reflected the voting behaviour of most of the electorate who felt that in the 2001 election labour was ‘bound to win’.
In the 2001 election most of the electorate felt apathetic, for example they felt that their votes were wasted because of the first past the post system, and how the policies between parties were converging, so there was no longer partisan alignment. Although I have already explained that the ethnic minorities tend to have a stronger party identification with labour. In the 2001 census the ethnic minorities groups actually only totalled to 8% of the population which doesn’t reflect even a tenth of the electorate, so in which case you could argue that voting by ethnic minorities doesn’t really make much of a difference with that of the whole electorate and so doesn’t reflect the voting behaviour.
At the moment Britain as a whole is facing a period of volatility in comparison to the ethnic minorities period of stability, although they are not participating within elections because of voter apathy, which does reflect the whole electorate. Reasons for the period of volatility, [in comparison to the period of 1945-70 when there was a strong partisan alignment within classes, parties focused their policies around classes and over 80% of people (the same figure of ethnic minorities identifying with labour in 2001) identified with their party] could be the influence of the mass media on today’s society which is changing peoples opinions of the government. For example in 1997 Murdoch, the editor of the sun, claimed that he had won labour the election by changing to a pro labour paper giving them better publicity with the public. I know that ethnic minority groups voted for labour in the 1997 elections reflecting the behaviour of the whole electorate, which could be because of the mass media. Other reasons for voting behaviour is; likeability factor of party leader for example many have claimed that in the past conservatives have failed due to poor leadership which is why at the moment they are concentrating on finding a strong suitable leader. The economy is also an important reason for voting behaviour for example some claim that Black Wednesday which cost everyone in Britain £75 led to the Tories being associated with economic incompetence, which people think eventually led to the swing of votes from conservative to labour.
However how far does voting by ethnic minorities reflect the voting behaviour of the whole electorate? The ethnic minority group is only a small percentage of the whole electorate and so doesn’t affect the overall majority however I do think that although twice the number of ethnic minorities preferred labour in the above source on the whole they do reflect the whole electorate, because although they seem to have a stronger party identification (which I think is because most of them are in the working class) like the whole electorate at the moment they are feeling voter apathy. But mainly because I don’t think that your ethnicity is an important factor in which party you vote. I think that other factors such as mass media, judgemental voting and party leader likeability are more important and within these factors ethnic minorities seem to vote the same way as the majority of the electorate. Because no single person will ever reflect the voting behaviour of the whole electorate whether there white, black, 25, 60 have blue eyes or green eyes, because there are so many different factors that influence voting behaviour and because of the period of volatility that is occurring at the moment.
