Black British Politicians
Today there are many Black British Politicians. It wasn’t always that way. People are political animals. Wherever there are people, there is politics. It’s literally woven into the very fabric of society, it’s always been so.
Since the earliest written evidence of Africans in Britain, we see that they have been involved in some way in the politics and culture of the places where they lived.
Black British Politicians of the Modern Era
A popular myth abounds, perpetuated by the British print media that the first non-white politicians were elected to the British Parliament in 1987. This is either a convenient lie or a schoolboy error.
When we look a little further back, you’ll come across Politicians of both Asian and African / Caribbean descent.
in 1772 James Townsend become the Lord Mayor of London. Townsend’s mother was mixed race and his grandmother was a Black South African.
Richard Beckford was a (Whig) MP and was one of the first mixed-race MPs in the country. Serving as an Mp between 1780-1796, his father William Beckford was an Mp and his mother, a slave from the Caribbean.
John Stewart was another mixed MP 1832-1847. Also The son of a Slave Owner and a Slave. He inherited plantations in the Caribbean and defended the position of Slavery.
Henry Redhead Galgacus Yorke was another mixed-race (Whig)MP for the City of York in 1841 and being re-elected in 1847. York’s father was the child of a Slave woman from Barbuda and Antigua Plantation owner, Samuel Redhead.
Peter McLagan was Scotland’s first non-White and first Black MP. He was a member of the Liberal Party and sat in the House of Commons from 1865 to 1893. His father was Peter McLagan, and his mother was an unknown Black woman. Photographs exist of McLagan, and he is very light-skinned, so it might be safe to assume that his mother was also.
The Whig/Liberals, David Ochterlony Dyce Sombre (1841-42) and Dadabhai Naoroji (1892-95), The Conservative, Mancherjee Bhownaggree (1895-1906) and the Communist, Shapurji Saklatvala (1922-24).
Non-White Mayors before 1950
Whilst not an MP, but a local councillor (1906) John Richard Archer became Englands second Black Mayor of Battersea (1913). Having been beaten to that illustrious title by Allan Glaisyer Minns, who became mayor of Thetford in Norfolk, (1904). The 1980s saw more black people being elected as mayors and councillors than ever before. A couple of examples are Valda James and Doug Brown.
1987 General Election saw the election of Black British politicians
In Nineteen Eighty-Seven, Britain elected to parliament politicians from black backgrounds, not counting regional councillors.
Bernie Grant, Diane Abbott and Paul Boateng were widely seen as trailblazers. Widely hailed as the first black Parliamentarians to serve in England, they were the first non-white MPS to serve since the mass immigration of the late 1940s / 1950s.
1997 General Election
1997 saw the first Labour Government in a generation, As Tony Blair’s ‘New Labour’ swept into power, promising a more inclusive politics they fielded more ethnic minority candidates than ever before. As well as several Asian MPs new faces with African British heritage were Oona King, Mark Hendrick, and David Lammy.
Since 1997 all the major political parties have fielded a number of non-white candidates with many going on to become MPs.
Serving Black British Politicians (updated 2021)
Conservative
- Adam Afriyie
- Bim Afolami
- Helen Grant
- James Cleverly
- Kemi Badenoch
- Kwasi Kwarteng
- Darren Henry
Labour
- Chi Onwurah
- Clive Lewis
- David Lammy
- Dawn Butler
- Diane Abbott
- Kate Osamor
- Marsha de Cordova
- Abena Oppong-Asare
- Bell Ribeiro-Addy
- Claudia Webbe
- Florence Eshalomi
- Kim Johnson
- Taiwo Owatemi
Black British Peers
In addition, there are a large number of retired politicians and Peers who come from an African British Background. We will be updating this page with more information about them in the near future.
