Politicians don't look like the electorate. They're older, whiter, male-r and richer than most normal people. Gay marriage was brought in under the Coalition, however, reporting of homophobic and transphobic hate crimes has gone up in the time since this seismic change. As for the rights of Black and Minority Ethnic [BAME] young people? The number of long-term unemployed among this group has risen by 49%. But some parties are changing, beginning to resemble, or even just represent the ideals of the multicultural people who make up the country. Take a look at their manifesto promises here: **
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Labour
With regards minorities and crime: ‘We will work with the police to improve ethnic minority recruitment so that the police better reflect the communities they serve.’ ‘We will take a zero-tolerance approach to hate crime, such as anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. We will challenge prejudice before it grows, whether in schools, universities or on social media. And we will strengthen the law on disability, homophobic and transphobic hate crime.’
LGBT rights: ‘We will work towards the decriminalisation of homosexuality worldwide’
And as for women as a minority? They purposefully create all-women shortlists to encourage them to go up the ladder, and will create a ministerial role for Preventing Violence Towards Women And Girls should they get into power.
Conservatives
There’s no mention of ‘Islamophobia’ ‘Anti-Semitism’ or ‘homophobia’ But there are 11 lines on how gay men who were criminalised for being gay back when it was illegal will, just like Alan Turing – played by Benedict Cumberbatch in The Imitation Game – be pardoned by the Government. Oh, and ‘We will continue to tackle all forms of bullying in our schools.’
Lib Dems
They’ve done a whole timeline about their record on gay rights, but also say they’ll ‘support schools to tackle homophobic and transphobic bullying and discrimination, and to establish a tolerant and inclusive environment for all their pupils. Internationally, they'll look to overturn bans on homosexuality.
And they'll make sure that in-school bullying, when it crosses the line, can be legally counted as harassment: 'We will remove schools’ exemption from the bar on harassment in these areas while protecting the right to teach about religious doctrine'.
They also will 'enhance the experience of all football fans by making homophobic chanting a criminal offence, like racist chanting. They'll also ‘monitor and tackle the BAME pay gap’ and ‘outlaw caste discrimination’ as well as 'boosting police recruitment’ of BAME groups and look at why so many BAME people fill our prisons. Plus, ‘we are determined to combat anti-Semitism and anti-Muslim hate in the UK and internationally’.
Green
The Greens have a lot on this. They will teach equality and diversity in schools, tackle problems with 'institutional racism in the police force and the wider criminal justice system.’, ‘Implement a UK-wide strategy to tackle violence against women, including domestic violence, rape and sexual abuse, female genital mutilation and trafficking’, and will set up a Equalities Committee in the House of Commons.
UKIP
Um...yeah, they've got nothing about minorities in their manifesto. When leader Nigel Farage was asked about the lack of non-white faces in their manifesto, he replied: 'Well firstly there was one fully black person. There was another one of our leading spokesmen who is half-black and that didn’t get a mention.'
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.