BIRMINGHAM – The Conservative party's campaign chief said his party has to "do more" to attract Muslim voters, who increasingly hold the balance of power in constituencies across the country.
Lynton Crosby, who normally prefers to operate in the shadows, made a rare public appearance at a Conservative party conference fringe event organised by Muslim Engagement & Development (MEND), an organisation that seeks to engage the British Muslim community in politics.
The organisation found Muslims could play a major role in determining the winner of next year's general election.
Using data compiled from the census by the University of Manchester, work by a researcher at the University of Bristol, and focus groups questioned by MEND itself, the organisation created charts about the attitudes of British Muslims. (It's worth noting that some in the audience questioned the methodology for the organisation's own polling.)
Here are some things we learned about the influence Muslims can have on UK politics:
1. Population growth amongst Muslims in the UK is pretty high.
2. A lot of Muslims think the Labour party does a better job of representing their ideas.
3. But there are a lot of young Muslims who have never voted before.
4. In terms of political participation, Muslims are more likely to have boycotted a brand than to have voted.
5. And Muslims could wipe out an entire Tory majority in 41 seats if they collectively voted in favour of another party.
6. That could be a particular problem in marginal seats, which are spread across the country.
7. And here's an interesting fact: Muslims feel particularly strongly about their sense of Britishness.
But this is perhaps the most important graph of all. This is how many fringe events the Conservative campaign chief attended.
