By Ben Kelly, blogger and editor of The Sceptic Isle.

The Operation Black Vote campaign is, in some ways, quite admirable. Sadly, their latest campaign sends out the wrong message entirely. It seems to me to be rather tasteless, divisive and pandering to the prevailing concept of identity politics.

A multi-racial Britain needs to be unified to be at ease with itself. It needs to be unified to facilitate the inclusion of minority groups. The dream must be that all who believe in our virtues as a nation and make up our diverse society are British, we are one nation and one people. Identity politics divides creates a victim mentality and weakens our social and political bonds. This latest “whiting up” campaign is good intentioned, but seems to create a divide between Black Britons and white Britons in a way that is counter productive.

“You’re taking the colour out of Britain”, next to the whitened face of a black man seems to put across a strange message that by not participating in the election you are allowing “the whites” all the power. Is it sensible or moral to divide us like this? It seems to create a sense of victim-hood, bitterness and resentment. It aggravates a sense of otherness rather than encouraging inclusivity in the British identity.

Once you enter the polling booth it does not matter if you are white, black, Asian, male, female, rich or poor. All these minority groups and all classes of people become indistinguishable. In that booth you are a British citizen voting in the democratic process to decide the government of your country. It is the great equaliser, one person, one vote. When we have the lamentable situation of rotten boroughs rife with electoral corruption, MPs that target racial groups for their own gain, government communicating with certain minority groups through “community leaders”, that is the ideal that we should be striving for.

Are we British? Or are we white British, black British, Asian British, female British, male British, gay British, trans British, etc. This is where identity politics leads and it is this inglorious tradition that the “taking the colour out of Britain” is perpetuating.

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