Race chief in black-only shortlists call

All-black shortlists should be introduced by Labour because too many white women are clinching safe seats in areas with high ethnic populations, Britain's race chief has urged.

Commission for Racial Equality chairman Trevor Phillips called for a change in the law to allow parties to select parliamentary candidates from black- or Asian-only lists.

Mr Phillips pointed to the case of West Ham, where MP Tony Banks is to step down at the next election, as an example of how women's rights often get priority over ethnic concerns in the Labour party.

The east London seat has a safe majority of more than 15,000 and an all-woman shortlist has been imposed in a bid to get more female MPs.

But the constituency also has an ethnic minority population of more than 60 per cent, Mr Phillips said.

Speaking on BBC London's Politics Show, Mr Phillips said: "It would be terribly disappointing and pretty destructive, I think, for ethnic minorities' faith in politics if, in the least white constituency in Europe, we did not see an ethnic minority candidate selected."

Mr Phillips said all-woman shortlists had failed ethnic minorities because "we have never had an ethnic minority candidate selected".

Some party members have long harboured resentment that women-only lists have been used to parachute middle-class women into working-class seats. But race campaigners now believe they are also losing out as white women are imposed on areas dominated by an ethnic minority population.

Another such seat where a white woman was selected last year was Hackney South and Shoreditch.

Asked if he would back a change in the Race Relations Act to make it legal for political parties to create ethnic minority shortlists, Mr Phillips said: "We would support an amendment."