A recent study carried out by ITV has highlighted that almost two-thirds of black and minority ethnic (BAME) MPs have experienced some form of racism while working in parliament. According to the study half of the respondents said they have faced abuse from fellow MPs.
The study was based on anonymous responses of 37 of the 65 BME MPs in the current parliament across all political parties including the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats.
Around 62 per cent said they faced “racism or racial profiling” while on the parliamentary estate. More than half of the MPs had faced it from their colleagues.
Labour MP for Hampstead and Kilburn Tulip Siddiq told ITV that when she was pregnant a colleague was ‘surprised’ that Siddiq was having a daughter. Her colleague believed that people from Asian backgrounds were likely to abort girls. Siddiq also added that when she was first running for parliament someone advised her to use her husband’s last name, because “people wouldn’t vote for ‘Tulip Siddiq’”. She said,
“Speaking to a colleague of a mine, she looked at me in astonishment and said: ‘You know you’re having a girl, because normally they don’t tell people of Asian origin they’re having a girl because you know, then Asian people decide …’ And I looked at her and I couldn’t believe what she was saying.”
Of the MPs, 92 per cent said they believed their ethnicity made it harder for them to enter parliament, while 83 per cent said it had made their job more difficult. The study even revealed that 83 per cent of MPs had experienced racism from the public.
Other MPs said they had been spat at in the street because of their religion. Afzal Khan, the Labour MP for Manchester Gorton, shared his experience of getting racist letters and emails asking to “go back to Pakistan.’”
In the meantime, a separate research carried out by workplace equality network ParliREACH highlighted the apartheid kind of system being followed by the Parliament. It listed “examples of times when they felt that the lack of diversity and understanding of race had resulted in racist (inadvertent or otherwise) behaviours”.
Black and minority ethnic staff who responded to a survey carried out last year also complained that historic parliamentary rules meant that they were not allowed to eat or drink in the same rooms or even use the same toilets as the mostly white members of the House of Lords.
The study, titled Stand in My Shoes: Race and Culture in Parliament, recommended that the hierarchy of access to restaurants, toilets and other parts of the parliamentary estate – which prevents staff from using the same facilities as politicians – be removed. “These reinforce power relationships and lead to a disproportionate number of BAME staff being questioned when trying to use parliamentary facilities,” it said.
