Lack of touch with ethnic minorities costing Tories seats, finds survey

London, Apr 29 (ANI): UK Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservatives will lose key marginal seats as they are out of touch with ethnic minorities, according to a new study.

Just for percent of black and seven percent of Asians people polled believed that they identified with the Tories, according to the biggest political survey of ethnic minorities every conducted, The Telegraph reports.

The findings reveal that the Tories expected to lose hundreds of local government seats following more grim news on the economy and the fallout from the ongoing hacking scandal, with the future of Cultural Secretary Jeremy Hunt still hanging in the balance.

There are at least a million Indians living in the UK, nearly 750,000 Pakistanis and more than a million black Caribbeans and black Africans, according to the latest official figures.

Significant numbers of Black and Asian people believe that Conservatives remain indifferent to ethnic minorities, according to the research, which was commissioned by Lord Ashcroft, the former deputy party chairman.

The key findings of the study, which involved conversations with 3,201 people from ethnic or religious minorities, revealed that 45 percent of black would never vote for Conservative.

Almost 59-69 percent of ethnic minority respondents believed that Tory politicians looked down on people from different ethnic or religious backgrounds.

Almost 61 percent of black voters said the Conservatives' policies demonstrated that they were hostile to ethnic minorities.

Only 29 percent of all participants said the Tories "understand minorities".

However, two thirds of voters from these groups backed Labour in the 2010 general election , with just 16 per cent supporting the Conservatives.

Muslim and Sikhs polled said they valued the freedom Britain offered to practice their religion.

Lord Ashcroft's research also revealed that high numbers of ethnic minorities did not vote regularly. Nearly 40 percent of mixed race and 37 percent of black respondents in the sturdy failed to vote in the 2010 general election. (ANI)