BAME Labour is born
25 11 2007Yesterday Black Socialist Society members voted overwhelmingly to change the name of the organisation to BAME Labour with immediate effect, at a special conference at the Manchester Arts and Technology College.
There was a divergence of views as to whether the name should be changed and to what. Members were given a choice of names to choose from, with other options being: the Black Socialist Society; the Black and Asian Society; the Black and Asian Socialist Society; the Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic Society, and the BAME Labour Society. BAME is commonly used to refer to black, Asian and minority ethnic peoples.
Addressing the conference, Keith Vaz MP, the organisation’s representative on the Labour Party’s National Executive Committee and Chair of the party’s Ethnic Minority Task Force said the name change was designed to help the organisation appeal to more members of Britain’s various ethnic minority communities.
Chuka Umunna, editor of TMP and a member of BAME Labour’s executive committee will shortly be sending out his report of the event to all those who have signed up to his BSS reports on this site. To sign up, please use the box on the right.
I must admit I’m not a fan of the new name, but hey “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet” so I guess I’ll have to learn to love it. My two difficulties with it are firstly the loss of the word “socialist” which I suppose I will eventually get used to and secondly the use of the BAME. Chuka, you state that BAME is commonly used to refer to black, Asian and minority ethnic peoples. The difficulty I have is that I don’t know anyone outside the party who uses the term. I know when I have used it to describe Labour party structures and processes, I’m repeatedly asked what it means by Black members. Not something that will aid recruitment I think and not something that shows Labour as in touch with the language of people on the street.
I think the conference was a success to call people from the ethenic minority to come forward and take the advantage of the policies that labour govt has for the better representation of the minority in the Parliment in order to bring a positive change in the society. Congratulations to Keith Vas and Shehzad Ahmed along with his team for the tiring efforts.
I would also like to thank Imran Rizvi for bringing the conference to Manchester and also to inform the conference for establishing Asian for Labour in 2002 endorsed by Ian Macartney MP (chair Labour).
So what is BAME doing for non ethnic groups???