We can decide the election

The campaign group Operation Black Vote (OBV) hosted world-renowned civil rights activist Rev. Al Sharpton on Saturday (January 24) in an event to kick off the organisation’s voter registration drive.

 
Black leaders from the UK also spoke at the event, including Lee Jasper and Diane Abbott MP, to a packed crowd at University of Westminster in central London.

 
Won and lost in the margins

 
Research from Operation Black Vote has found that the black and minority ethnic electorate may hold the power to decide the upcoming election in May.

 
In its report, OBV shows that 168 marginal seats have BME electorates larger than the 2010 majorities of the sitting MP, when measured against the 2011 census and counting only the voting electorate.

 
“168 seats equates to over a quarter (29 per cent) of all constituencies in England and Wales,” the report notes. “Therefore, almost one-third of MP’s can be voted in or out depending on the extent that they, and their party, appeals to BME voters.”

 
OBV director and co-founder Simon Woolley introduced Rev. Sharpton by hammering home these statistics. Large swaths of black and minority ethnic voters are not registered, and they are generally less likely to vote as compared to other groups.

 
Woolley argued that BMEs now have unprecedented political power, but if trends continue, they may not choose to use this power.

 
“The most damning effect of racism is that it makes ourselves feel inferior,” he said. “The dynamics of racism are such that we are locking ourselves out from using our own power.

 
“But make no mistake – this election will be won and lost in the margins,” Woolley added. “Our vote could, and it should, decide the next election.

 
“Their gamble is that you won’t show up”

 
Sharpton kicked off his address by arguing that activism is pointless if it does not lead to direct change, and that voting was one of the most power tools to effect this change.

 
“The battles we are fighting in America are the same battles you are fighting here in the UK,” Sharpton said. “If the battles you fight do not lead to change, then we are fighting these battles to raise the hopes of our people with no purpose.

 
“Too many of us get caught up in the drama of activism instead of the direction of activism. We are always saying, ‘Let’s mobilise, let’s mobilise, let’s mobilise,’ without thinking about what we are actually mobilising towards,” he added.

 
Sharpton condemned the current government’s austerity programme that’s ripped through the fabric of British society.
Commenting on the coalition government, Sharpton said:

 
“How can they demand austerity, how can they demand that you cut back, when lower- and middle- income people have never seen any economic benefits in the first place? They tell you to tighten your belt when you’ve been left outside standing in your underpants the whole time.

 
“But they are counting on you to do nothing about it,” he added. “You have 168 districts where you can be the balance of power. Their gamble is that you won’t show up, that you’ll be angry for one or two days, you may go out and march, and then you’ll go home.

 
“But if you go out and vote, and you change some of these seats, then they’ll know you are serious.”

 
“We must fight as one”

 
Sharpton expressed gratitude for international support of Eric Garner and various other black American men brutally murdered at the hands of police, which have sparked protests across America and the world.

 
But he urged those in attendance to remember the problems they face at home and listed reasons that people should vote, including among other issues the devastating effects of austerity, and an immigration bill that he called the “worst racial profiling bill I’ve ever seen”.

 
“If you don’t deal with these problems, you are co-signing your approval for those in power to continue in this way,” he added.

 
Sharpton argued, as did many speakers at the event, that all forms of oppression—whether it is racism, Islamaphobia, homophobia, classism or sexism—have their roots in the exercise of elite power and share the common ideology of dehumanisation.

 
“Don’t let them divide you into tribes,” Sharpton said. “They say, ‘This is about immigration, so that ain’t for you. Or this is about women, so that ain’t for you. Or this is about gays and lesbians, so that ain’t for you. All of it is for us all. We must protect the rights of everybody, or else you put every other right in jeopardy.

 
“We must fight as one, as all the same,” he added, to roaring cheers in the crowd. “We’ve got the tools to do it, we’ve got the numbers to do, the question is — Are you going to stand up and get it done?”

 
To find out more about Operation Black Vote’s registration campaign, which Unite is supporting as part of its coalition campaign with the Daily Mirror, #NoVoteNoVoice, visit OBV’s website here.