Design, citizenship and the city
13 May 2009
The Sutton Minority Ethnic Forum is running a project called the Shadow Councillor Scheme, which lets people who may be interested in becoming councillors find out more by closely following a councillor for a month. While everyone is welcome to apply to the project, the council says that:
We are particularly hoping to attract interest from Sutton’s minority groups to help improve the political representation of the borough’s minority ethnic communities.
There seem to be two assumptions in this statement. The first is that there aren’t enough ethnic minority councillors (hereafter “ME”) and the second that the ethnic composition of the council actually matters.
So, is Sutton Council too white, and if so, what would be an acceptable number of ME councillors? I don’t think it’s my job to allocate specific councillors into ethnic categories but I expect that the council does this, whether by self-reporting or otherwise. Nonetheless, you can take a look at the current list of 54 councillors and judge for yourself. They do look predominantly white to me.
At what point does this predominantly white council become too white? If the question is meaningful at all it must be possible to quantify the matter. The usual approach to “under-representation” is to consider the chosen ones in the context of the pool from which they are chosen. Sutton had just over 10% ME residents in the 2001 census and it’s estimated that there are now around 13% ME people living in the borough. Should we assume that it is unacceptable for there to be fewer than 13% ME councillors, as seems to be the case at present? If so, what if there were more than 13% ME councillors? Would we then have a problem of white people being under-represented? Could we expect to see council-funded projects “particularly hoping to attract interest from Sutton’s white community”?
Why stop with treating all ME people as a homogeneous group? We might be able to approximately hit just the “right” amount of ME councillors but then find that people from Chinese backgrounds are hogging seats that really should go to Black Africans. Is this all about skin colour or should White Irish and White Other Europeans get a look-in too? What’s their representation like?
And of course, why stop with ethnicity? Plenty of other social groups could make a claim for better representation on the council. There appear to be 17 women on the council or around 31%, far below the number of women in the population which is just over 50%. Women appear to be at least as far behind as MEs in representation — why isn’t a women’s group running this project expressing “particular hope” in getting more women on board? How would we go about getting just the right number of councillors from all these groups (some of which overlap) simultaneously?
If you’ve already switched off by now, you’ll probably have this down as yet another exercise in lambasting “political correctness” through the exploration of a supposed white (male) victimology. So I should be very clear about this: Discrimination is real, it is bad and it should be tackled effectively. But the root of discrimination is the false perception of significant difference and that’s very much what it looks like is happening with projects like this in a place like Sutton. Situations elsewhere may be different, of course.
Why should anyone care about the ethnic origin of their councillor or indeed, the council as a whole, in a place like Sutton in 2009? Is it right to assume that a white councillor here cannot represent a black resident? Is it right to assume that a black councillor here cannot represent a white resident? Should we assume that just because a body of councillors doesn’t appear to be representative of the population in terms of ethnicity, that the population is in fact not represented by them adequately? This isn’t 1930s Alabama or contemporary Barnsley or Barking. Do our 31 LibDems, 21 Tories and two independents harbour a significant number of closet racists?
If this is an issue in practice then I’ll be the first to want to do something about it. Local councillors serve a dual role. In no particular order, they represent their parties on the council and work to advance their parties’ political programmes. They also represent the constituents of their wards and often act in a non-partisan way to ensure that their constituents’ voices are heard and their personal issues with the council are settled. In my experience, local councillors generally do a good job.
To seek to increase the number of ME councillors is really implying one of two things, neither of which are very complimentary. Either the white councillors really aren’t representing their ME constituents adequately. I suspect and I hope this isn’t true. Alternatively, perhaps it’s the case that ME residents feel that they don’t want to be represented by white councillors, no matter how good a job they may try to do. I suspect and hope that this, too, isn’t true. But if there is racism among Sutton’s councillors or in the wider community, why don’t we deal with it rather than assuming that the problem lies with the ethnic composition of the council?
It’s great that Sutton Council is giving local people a chance to find out more about becoming a councillor. I’d be happy to see anyone from any background stand as a candidate for the party of their choice, or as an independent. But the single biggest impediment to large numbers of people getting elected as councillors is not supporting either the Conservative or Liberal Democrat parties, being the only parties which managed to get councillors elected at the last full council election. If you want to pretty much guarantee failure at the ballot box and exclusion from elected office in Sutton, stand for Labour, the Greens, UKIP, the BNP or yourself. It won’t be your ethnic background that sees you left out in the cold but your politics. That’s where a real and significant lack of diversity on the council is clearly evident.
Of all the differences that one could discern between people, ethnic origin in a place like Sutton is one of the least significant. Most ME people here have either been born in Britain (often to parents that were themselves born here) or have lived here so long that their cultural frame of reference is as much British as mine. The council should act against discrimination where it finds it but should also be absolutely scrupulous about not making even the very subtle implied insinuations of discrimination or unfair treatment where none appear to exist. There is enough real misery in society without having to contrive more — and allocate public money to its supposed amelioration.
We should work towards having a community not where the composition of the council is “sufficiently diverse” (whatever that might mean in practice) but where people of all backgrounds (and not just all ethnic backgrounds) feel well represented by their councillors, whoever they may be. It matters what councillors do, not who they are. If the Shadow Councillor Scheme runs again next year, let’s have it organised by a neutral group rather than a sectional interest one and make it clear that absolutely everyone is not just welcome, but equally welcome.
I welcome your own perspectives and experiences in the comments below.
10 September 2009
I do think that for many reasons it matters who your politicians are.
What alternate solutions would you propose to increase the diversity of thoughts in the political process?
I know that where I come from, people of different genders, sexual orientation, cultures and immigrant status do bring out different concerns and voices because of their diverse life experiences.
26 October 2009
Does it really matter about colour etc, the right person for the job should be the the one doing it wether they are black, yellow or whatever. How many English/British local or national politicians are there in say Spain where quite a few ex-pats live?
8 January 2010
Would anyone dare ask is Lambeth council is too black?