Lord Ashcroft poll: 45 Years After "Rivers of Blood", Most Ethnic Minorities Have Never Heard of Enoch Powell

However, while 51% of minority voters interviewed said they had not heard of Powell, nearly two thirds (64%) of black Caribbean respondents said they knew who he was and what he said.

However, while 51% of minority voters interviewed said they had not heard of Powell, nearly two thirds (64%) of black Caribbean respondents said they knew who he was and what he said.

Powell delivered the notorious speech in Birmingham on 20 April 1968.

Lord Ashcroft polled 1,035 adults from ethnic minorities between 15 March and 22 April. A separate nationally representative survey was conducted between 12 and 14 April. The research also found:

In his commentary on the results, to be published on Conservative Home on Friday 19 April, Lord Ashcroft says:

"Only 16% of ethnic minority voters supported us at the last election. As I argued in Degrees of Separation [his research among ethnic minority voters published in 2012] we must do better than this - both because we should be a party for the whole country, and because we will find it increasingly difficult to win a majority without them. There is no doubt that in 2010 this situation cost us seats".

Notes to Editors

1. 1,035 adults from ethnic minorities were interviewed by telephone between 22 March and 15 April 2013. The sample included 169 participants of Black Caribbean background, 154 Black African, 501 Muslim, 150 Hindu, and 100 Sikh.

A separate survey of 1,002 adults was conducted by telephone between 12 and 14 April 2013; results have been weighted to be politically representative of all adults in Great Britain. Full poll tables will be available at LordAshcroftPolls.com on Friday 19 April.

 

2. Lord Ashcroft KCMG PC is an international businessman, author and philanthropist. He is founder and Chairman of the Board of Crimestoppers, a member of the Board of the Imperial War Museum and a Trustee of the Imperial War Museum Foundation, Chairman of the Trustees of Ashcroft Technology Academy, Chancellor of Anglia Ruskin University and Treasurer of the International Democrat Union. From 2005 to 2010 he was Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party.

 

3. His political books and research papers include Smell The Coffee (2005), Minority Verdict (2010), Project Blueprint (2011 & 2012), The Leadership Factor (2011), Degrees of Separation (2012), The Armed Forces & Society (2012), Blue Collar Tories (2012), Project Red Alert (2012), They're Thinking What We're Thinking: Understanding The UKIP Temptation (2012), and What Are The Liberal Democrats For? (2013).

 

4. Full details of Lord Ashcroft's polling and commentary can be found at LordAshcroftPolls.com, where you can also sign up for news alerts. Follow him on Twitter: @LordAshcroft

View the poll: http://multivu.prnewswire.com/mnr/prne/operations/Ethnic_Minority_Voters_poll_summary-April_2013.pdf