Former chief whip says Cameron would have won overall majority in 2010 had Tories maintained vote share across communities
The Conservative party is failing to reach out to Britain's black and minority ethnic communities who feel there is a barrier preventing them voting Tory, former chief whip Andrew Mitchell has said.
In a candid description of the challenge facing the Tories, Mitchell called on the party to examine in a "slightly self critical way" the reasons why BME voters are failing to support the party, which should be the natural home of all entrepreneurs.
Mitchell, who was speaking to the modernising Bright Blue Tory thinktank at Westminster, also warned that eurosceptics were in danger of adopting a "fog in Channel, Europe cut off" approach to the EU. Britain should adopt a common reform agenda across the EU rather than just focusing on its own demands.
The former international development secretary highlighted the importance of winning over BME voters; he said that if the Tories had maintained their national share of the vote across all communities David Cameron would have won an overall parliamentary majority.
Mitchell told the Bright Blue thinktank: "The area of our party's engagement with the ethnic and minority communities in Britain – I was constantly struck as development secretary by the fact that we do not reach the party into these communities which are very strongly supportive of our principles and often our philosophy and ideals.
"It is a fact that if we had achieved the same voter support in the ethnic and minority communities in Britain at the last election we would have won 26 more seats and we would not now be in coalition with the Liberal Democrats. This is an area we really need to focus on.
"I think of the relationships I have made with people in the Chinese, Indian, Pakistani and Somali communities and with some of the entrepreneurs and business people who are contributing to life in Britain in other ways as well. You can see why they ought to be supporters of the Conservative party. They have always felt a barrier with us and we need to do more to reach out and explain why the policies and the principles that guide us in the next election and thereafter are policies and principles they should naturally want to support. We need to do that in a slightly self critical way, asking ourselves why we have not been successful in the past at achieving that support and what we can do to mend whatever negatives it is that have caused that."
Mitchell criticised hardline eurosceptics. He said: "There are a community of interests between us and other parliamentarians in other EU countries. But you have got to be careful that the language isn't always: 'Fog in the Channel, Europe cut off.'
"We need to reach out for the common reforms that George Osborne talked about in his speech. There is a community of interests between us as citizens in Britain and citizens in other European countries to make a number of reforms. There is support in other parliaments. People know [about the importance of] Europe's deregulation – it has to compete in very difficult circumstances with some of the great tigers in the east. There is a common agenda that we need to root the reforms in so that it is not just something for Britain, it is something for the whole of the EU. That is the right language."
Mitchell's remarks came as the German foreign minister said that Berlin was not against renegotiating EU treaties – the prerequisite for Cameron's reform plans. But Frank-Walter Steinmeier echoed the view in Paris that this is not a priority.
Speaking at a press conference with William Hague, he said that Germany was "not against discussing an adaptation of the treaties". But he said there were many different opinions around treaty change, adding: "It will not be the top priority of every government across Europe." Reported by guardian.co.uk 1 hour ago.
The Conservative party is failing to reach out to Britain's black and minority ethnic communities who feel there is a barrier preventing them voting Tory, former chief whip Andrew Mitchell has said.
In a candid description of the challenge facing the Tories, Mitchell called on the party to examine in a "slightly self critical way" the reasons why BME voters are failing to support the party, which should be the natural home of all entrepreneurs.
Mitchell, who was speaking to the modernising Bright Blue Tory thinktank at Westminster, also warned that eurosceptics were in danger of adopting a "fog in Channel, Europe cut off" approach to the EU. Britain should adopt a common reform agenda across the EU rather than just focusing on its own demands.
The former international development secretary highlighted the importance of winning over BME voters; he said that if the Tories had maintained their national share of the vote across all communities David Cameron would have won an overall parliamentary majority.
Mitchell told the Bright Blue thinktank: "The area of our party's engagement with the ethnic and minority communities in Britain – I was constantly struck as development secretary by the fact that we do not reach the party into these communities which are very strongly supportive of our principles and often our philosophy and ideals.
"It is a fact that if we had achieved the same voter support in the ethnic and minority communities in Britain at the last election we would have won 26 more seats and we would not now be in coalition with the Liberal Democrats. This is an area we really need to focus on.
"I think of the relationships I have made with people in the Chinese, Indian, Pakistani and Somali communities and with some of the entrepreneurs and business people who are contributing to life in Britain in other ways as well. You can see why they ought to be supporters of the Conservative party. They have always felt a barrier with us and we need to do more to reach out and explain why the policies and the principles that guide us in the next election and thereafter are policies and principles they should naturally want to support. We need to do that in a slightly self critical way, asking ourselves why we have not been successful in the past at achieving that support and what we can do to mend whatever negatives it is that have caused that."
Mitchell criticised hardline eurosceptics. He said: "There are a community of interests between us and other parliamentarians in other EU countries. But you have got to be careful that the language isn't always: 'Fog in the Channel, Europe cut off.'
"We need to reach out for the common reforms that George Osborne talked about in his speech. There is a community of interests between us as citizens in Britain and citizens in other European countries to make a number of reforms. There is support in other parliaments. People know [about the importance of] Europe's deregulation – it has to compete in very difficult circumstances with some of the great tigers in the east. There is a common agenda that we need to root the reforms in so that it is not just something for Britain, it is something for the whole of the EU. That is the right language."
Mitchell's remarks came as the German foreign minister said that Berlin was not against renegotiating EU treaties – the prerequisite for Cameron's reform plans. But Frank-Walter Steinmeier echoed the view in Paris that this is not a priority.
Speaking at a press conference with William Hague, he said that Germany was "not against discussing an adaptation of the treaties". But he said there were many different opinions around treaty change, adding: "It will not be the top priority of every government across Europe." Reported by guardian.co.uk 1 hour ago.