UK Sikhs divided over exit from Europe
Thursday, 17/03/2016
http://paper.hindustantimes.com/epaper/viewer.aspx
LONDON: Britain’s Sikh groups are divided on which way to vote in the referendum on June 23 as it emerged on Wednesday that most black and ethnic minority (BME) voters in the country are against Britain’s exit from the European Union.
The Sikh Federation UK, which is campaigning to remain in the EU, said its survey of 1,000 voters showed that 66% wanted to stay, 24% to leave and 10% were undecided.
However, the Sikh Council UK has decided to stay neutral and indicated that the opinion remains divided among its members.
“We’re an aspirational community with a lot of young professionals and many of those are very much in favour of staying in. Those who are less supportive see that EU migration cannot be stopped, but it gets harder to bring a spouse into the country or to get permission for relatives to attend a wedding,” a spokesperson said.
A YouGov poll for ‘The Times’ suggested that 42% of BME voters want to remain while 31% support Brexit. Simon Woolley, of Operation Black Vote (OBV), which campaigns to increase voter registration among ethnic minorities in the UK, believes the answer lies in better engagement from both camps.
“For months we’ve been excluded from this debate, but it’s clear that our votes are up for grabs and could make a difference,” he said, warning against a growing anti-EU fervour among BME voters.
“One is a longstanding feeling that the European project has been anti-black — we’ve seen the emergence of far-right groups, some of them pretty nasty. Added to that is that many black people feel they’re competing for jobs with Eastern Europeans. The two things come together in the feeling among some that the ‘EU is really not right for us’,” Woolley told the newspaper.
A recent research by the UK’s race relations think tank Runnymede Trust concluded that many black and minority ethnic people are “ambivalent about the benefits of the EU”.
“They appear less likely to take advantage of free movement (very few move about for work and, arguably, feel less...’ shared identity’ with others in Europe),” it said.
