Blair’s Landslide: A New Government and the Caribbean Community’s Moment of Hope

Quarterly Jamaica Windrush & Diaspora Update | Published: 3 July 1997 | Period covered: January–June 1997

Key Developments at a Glance

• 1 May 1997: Labour wins historic landslide; Caribbean community delivers overwhelming vote for Blair amid hope for change.
• Nine Black and Asian MPs elected to Parliament — the largest number in British electoral history; community organisations celebrate.
• John Major’s eighteen-year Conservative era ends; Caribbean community reflects on the record of government that closed its doors.
• Paul Boateng, Diane Abbott, Bernie Grant, and others take their seats; Black parliamentary representation at historic high.
• New Labour pledges to reform Race Relations Act and establish Macpherson inquiry into Stephen Lawrence case.
• PJ Patterson in Jamaica congratulates Blair; affirms Jamaica’s desire for stronger bilateral relationship under new government.

On 1 May 1997, the Labour Party under Tony Blair wins a general election landslide of a scale that British politics has not witnessed since the post-war election of 1945. Labour gains 418 seats, a majority of 179 — the largest parliamentary majority of the twentieth century. The Conservatives, reduced to 165 seats, suffer their worst defeat since 1906. Michael Portillo, one of the most senior figures of the Thatcherite right, loses his seat in Enfield Southgate to a Labour candidate who is barely known outside the local party. Across the country, in constituencies that Labour has not held for decades, the electorate has spoken with a clarity that produces scenes of jubilation in Labour clubs, community centres, and living rooms from Brixton to Bradford to Birmingham.

A Community That Voted for This

The Caribbean community in Britain has voted Labour in numbers that have made it one of the party’s most loyal electoral constituencies for the entire post-war period. The reasons are not simply partisan identification but a reading of political reality: it is Labour governments that passed the Race Relations Acts, Labour governments that created the framework of anti-discrimination law, Labour governments that have been more likely to listen to the community’s demands. The Conservatives’ record — the Commonwealth Immigrants Acts, the hostile language of immigration debate from Enoch Powell through Michael Howard, the failure under successive Home Secretaries to address the community’s concerns about policing — has sustained the Labour alignment across generations that were born long after Attlee.

The 1997 result therefore carries a particular significance for the Caribbean community: not the cautious optimism of a close Labour victory, but the knowledge that the party they have supported has won a mandate so substantial that it cannot be explained away as a narrow win on a divided vote. Blair has no excuses for inaction. He has the numbers to legislate, to reform, to create new institutions and dismantle old frameworks that have served the Caribbean community poorly. The community is watching to see whether this moment is used.

Black and Asian MPs: A Historic Parliament

The 1997 general election returns nine Black and Asian MPs — the largest number in the history of the House of Commons. Among them are figures who have carried the Caribbean community’s aspirations and frustrations into the parliamentary chamber for years: Paul Boateng, who represents Brent South and is immediately appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Home Office; Diane Abbott, who represents Hackney North and Stoke Newington and has been one of the most distinctive voices on race in Parliament since her election in 1987; and Bernie Grant, who represents Tottenham and has been a tireless advocate for the Caribbean community throughout his parliamentary career. The sight of a Parliament that, however imperfectly and partially, begins to look more like the country that elects it is received in the community as a symbol of possibility, though it is understood that representation and power are not the same thing.

Eighteen Conservative Years: The Community’s Balance Sheet

As John Major hands over Downing Street and the Conservative era ends, the Caribbean community takes stock of what those eighteen years contained. The period from 1979 to 1997 encompassed the Brixton riots of 1981, which produced the Scarman Report — with its warnings about racial disadvantage and policing that were never fully acted upon. It encompassed the inner-city disturbances of 1985, the murder of Stephen Lawrence in 1993, and the subsequent failure of the police and the CPS to bring his killers to justice. It encompassed the implementation of immigration policies that made the Caribbean community feel less welcome in a country that had invited their parents and grandparents. It encompassed the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 and the Asylum and Immigration Appeals Act 1993 and the Immigration Act 1988 — each of which the community had opposed as measures that disproportionately affected Black and minority ethnic people.

The community does not write off the entire eighteen years as uniformly hostile: there were individual ministers who engaged, individual policies that helped, individual moments of recognition. But the aggregate is not a record that the community regards with affection. The hope that attaches to Blair’s government is in direct proportion to the frustration accumulated over the years that preceded it.

The New Government’s Early Commitments

Within weeks of taking office, the Blair government signals an agenda on race and equality that is more ambitious than anything announced by its predecessors. Jack Straw, the new Home Secretary, announces the establishment of a public inquiry into the Metropolitan Police’s handling of the murder of Stephen Lawrence. The government commits to incorporating the European Convention on Human Rights into domestic law. There are early consultations on reform of the Race Relations Act 1976, which the community has long regarded as inadequate in its coverage of public authorities. The tone is one of engagement rather than dismissal. Whether the substance follows the tone is the question the community will spend the coming years answering.

Sources: Jamaica Information Service; The Gleaner; Jamaica Observer; Caribbean National Weekly; New Nation; The Voice; BBC News; Reuters; AP; The Guardian; Commission for Racial Equality; Runnymede Trust; CARICOM Secretariat; Jamaica High Commission London; Home Office (UK); House of Commons Hansard; Electoral Commission.

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