The competing influences of party identity and ethnic identity on political perceptions in Britain: a social identity theory of partisan bias

Many commentators greeted the 2005 swing to the Liberal Democrats among ethnic minority voters in British General Elections as a critical change in minorities’ voting behaviour. The unpopular decision by the Labour government to go to war in Iraq was identified as a cause of this shift; however its importance was significantly over-interpreted when it was heralded as a beginning of a new era in the minorities’ political behaviour. This claim was symptomatic of an assumption underlying most of the British conventional wisdom and academic scholarship: that the Labour party is a ‘natural’ party for minorities, and a resulting conclusion that minorities are part of Labour’s core vote. However, this paper argues such sweeping conclusions were unwarranted, and sprang from a one-dimensional understanding of the concept of Labour as a ‘natural party of minorities’. This paper identifies two, not one, possible outcomes of Labour being a ‘natural party of minorities’ and uses the concept of partisan bias to frame and test these outcomes. A measure of partisan bias is proposed on the basis of social identity theory. This is a comparatively novel framework for the understanding and measurement of partisan bias and it is argued that it provides the best test of the two possible outcomes. On the basis of this analysis it becomes clear that it is ethnic identity rather than Labour identity that influences minorities’ political perceptions and evaluations. As a result minorities’ defection from Labour in 2005 could have easily been conceived of in 1997 and is in keeping with usual patterns of minorities’ political choices. Ethnic minorities in Britain have almost uniformly supported the Labour party ever since their party choice was first recorded in 1964, on average voting for the party at rates above 80 per cent,. In the 2005 General Election, when many minority voters switched their support from Labour to Liberal Democrats most commentators announced this deflection from Labour as a major change of heart rather than a shortterm protest vote on the issue of the Iraq war. Statements such as: ‘Whatever the result on 5 May 2005, one thing is certain: many Muslims in Britain are no longer a captive audience willing merely to put a cross next to the Labour candidate once