Labour bids to regain Asian vote

Published on Thursday 27 November 2008 21:03

JIM Murphy, the Secretary of State for Scotland, last night began Labour's efforts to woo back the Asian community from the SNP.

At an awards evening for Asian businessmen, Mr Murphy announced he would be setting up a panel of Asian business people to feed into the efforts to help Scotland through the recession and grow the economy.

But a source close to the minister said the initiative was part of efforts to "bring home" the Asian vote, especially Muslims, after strenuous efforts by the SNP to win their hearts and minds.

The Nationalists' effort in recent times has been controversially led by their Glasgow Central candidate, Osama Saeed, who has set up the Scottish Islamic Foundation. Question marks have been raised about the speed with which his foundation received money from the Scottish Government to organise an Islamic festival, although there was no evidence presented of ministerial interference.

Labour had the first Muslim MP in the UK with Mohammad Sarwar in Glasgow Central, and it also expects to have the first Muslim women elected to Westminster in English seats after the next election. But the SNP has won plaudits with the election of Bashir Ahmad on the Glasgow list as the first Muslim MSP.

The source close to Mr Murphy said: "We have to recognise that the SNP have been very active in wooing the Asian vote.

"The Asian communities are very strong, both politically and economically, and in the past Labour has been very effective at winning them over and working with them. However, we recognise in Scotland that we need to try to win many of them back to the Labour Party."