Birmingham and Brexit: How 2016 will shape the city's election result
Monday 9 December 2019 09:35, UK
By Rebecca Taylor, news reporter
Birmingham is Britain's second largest city and home to more than four million people. It's also one of Britain's most diverse cities, with more than 42% recording non-white in the 2011 census.
In 2016, its Brexit vote was split almost 50:50. Areas like Bartley Green and Kingstanding represented some of the biggest majorities for leave in the whole country, at 66% and 71% respectively. Shard End recorded 75% to leave.
But at the other end, Ladywood voted just 29% to leave, and in Moseley & Kings Heath, voters polled 23% to leave.
A report in 2018 showed Birmingham was set to become majority non-white in the next few years, with 50,000 of its residents not speaking English.
As one of Britain's largest cities, it's easy to compare its voting trends with the capital, where only five out of 33 boroughs voted to leave, and the overwhelming majority wanted to remain in the EU.
London may be twice the size of Birmingham, but in the 2011 census, it was about 69% white, a higher proportion than Birmingham.
But Birmingham's citizens are torn by the impact of immigration and the success of integration. Sky News spoke to Brummies across the city to find out why.
'The EU only worked for farmers'
Sipping a cup of tea in one of the city centre’s markets, Mrs Nazir says cultures and people rub along well in Birmingham - but agrees that it is time to leave the EU.
"I think we should leave the EU, it's good to leave, I don't think they have done anything for us.
"They have done a lot for farmers, but I don't think it came to the public. But now it's going to put up the charges for those of us going to the EU. I wanted to visit my sister in Spain but I'll have to go before 31 January."
Mrs Nazir came to the UK in 1972 and has been settled ever since. With no desire to move elsewhere, she says immigration will be a big factor in how she votes come 12 December.
"Immigration will be a big reason - I know how I’m going to vote and nothing that will happen will change my mind. I’ve made up my mind and I’m waiting for the date," she says.
Next to her is a fellow migrant. John O'Connor came to Birmingham from Ireland "a long, long time ago" and the city has felt like home for decades.
Like many others, immigration, and the Brexit vote, is going to be a big part of how he votes in the election.
"The way I voted in the referendum, I feel the same way. I'm retired, I’m starting to feel sorry for the business people and those running shops, people don't know what’s going to go on. In the factories, they don't know. I think they might put a lot of people on the dole.
"I think we have got too many people in the country and they ought to be vetted before they come in. If we had something like Australia, you could have the quality, plumbers or electricians, the sort of thing we need in this country. We don’t have enough nurses, we are getting that from abroad, but we could say, okay we need these people.
"We might lose those people but people will go where the money is, so if we aren't paying a decent wage they will go somewhere else."
'I voted leave, but I didn't know the agenda behind it'
At Birmingham City University, there’s a wide range of cultures and nationalities studying everything from business management to engineering.
In the walls of the campus, students say they feel safe. But outside, some have experienced abuse for the way they look.
Jaspreet Singh was the UK’s first Sikh and international student to become president of a students' union. In 2018, he won the Mayor's Award for his contributions to the city.
But those two factors haven't played a big role in his life outside his studies.
He said: "We do talk a lot about immigration, being international students, and for me, seeing people referred to as cockroaches, it is very disheartening. I’m very sad to see this.
"Sometimes I feel very unwelcome, as do my EU friends. I have been going through this since I arrived in 2013.
"I voted to leave in the referendum. A lot of [why I voted leave] was scaremongering, from Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage, I did not realise the agenda behind it. It was a very sad agenda.
"Later on, when I saw my EU friends going through the racist abuse that I had gone through it made me really sad."
Amir Iqbal, the university’s Italian Society president, disputes the perception that everyone who comes to the UK wants benefits.
He said: "We do get some abuse, people will say you can't have the benefits we have because you aren't British, they say you can't have free education and free NHS, I came to learn, I did not come for freebies.
"I’m teaching Italian for free, we are giving back. We learn something we teach something, we leave something of our culture here."
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Along with Parvez Pathan, president of the university’s international society, the trio are expecting immigration and Brexit to play a role in the election, but say they want to see more done on other issues too.
Mr Singh said: "There are a lot more problems across the country, crime, there was a stabbing here a couple of days ago, and everyone was afraid. Homelessness, the NHS... in Birmingham, last winter a person died on the streets because of the cold."
'The UK is 90% welcoming now'
Other EU citizens in Birmingham are concerned about the outcome of the election. Without a vote, their future and the direction of Brexit is in the hands of the rest of the UK.
Claudia Favero, originally from Italy, works in e-learning for the University of Birmingham and has lived in the city for five years, having moved from Coventry. She lived in London as a student and has lived internationally with her now husband, and for eight years in the UK with him and their children.
But she admitted she feels more and more like a guest in the UK, and her future here is less certain.
She said: "I have the feeling it is 90% welcoming and open, but a little bit before the referendum, I started to feel a little bit different. Not that anything happened to me personally but just the general atmosphere had changed.
"I was not expecting that but I was expecting the leave vote."
She added: "People having to apply for visas, having to pay for the NHS, our kids not able to get home fees for university, not able to have family members here.
"But everyday there is a possibility that something else is coming."
She said that Brexit would be looming in the minds of many - but not those who can have any say.
Mrs Favero said: "For the EU community it is the biggest thing because we would like to know what direction the country is going, but I have the impression that the NHS is maybe more in the minds of a lot of people.
"Leaving the EU does not have to destroy the country, but the way it is going, I get the feeling it will."
'Even climate change has become a leave vs remain issue'
On the outskirts of the city centre, where the town meets Digbeth, sits the Impact Hub, an organisation on a mission to "build future town halls", which is in its final days in a Grade II listed office space.
Inside, members believe in immigration, equality, and creative resistance, but they aren't blind to the difference between their organisation and many other parts of Birmingham.
Thom Bartley, from Wolverhampton, straddles those two divided worlds.
"In this hub we have people from everywhere and it's not just tolerated it's actively encouraged. I find my life is richer by knowing people from all over the world.
"I come from Wolverhampton, grew up in a working-class area, and here everyone I speak to is pro-remain, but if I go into the pub at home, everyone is leave.
"But in Birmingham, you get involved in the scene here, you meet people from all over, and break down barriers. I remember when someone brought a friend who was a Syrian refugee and I had this view in my head of people looking sad but he spoke fluent English and was a graphic designer.
"It's very easy to get caught up in a narrative but when you are here you don't just hear it you see it first hand. Your prejudices go out of the window."
The 32-year-old said he wasn't surprised by what happened in the Brexit vote in June 2016.
He said: "In general, people who are pro-remain are vocal about it but those who are pro-leave are just getting on with their lives. They aren't on Twitter, they aren't in places like this.
"But it's permeated everything - a few years ago you could have talked to my friends about climate change but now you mention it and they say 'oh that’s a remainer thing'. It should be non-partisan but it's infected everything."
'We haven't figured out cohesion'
Hub team member Daniel Blyden is somewhat downbeat when immigration is mentioned, and Birmingham’s social cohesion. Unlike some older city dwellers, he is less convinced that people rub along together well.
He said: "I don’t think we have figured out real cohesion. I think people still live parallel lives.
"People don’t have to live all their lives together but there’s still a lack of understanding. I think it’s because of people not having a sense of belonging and that hasn’t been looked at.
"My grandparents were the Windrush generation and my parents and I were born here. We are still trying to keep ties with family abroad because there’s still a sense of is this our home?
"Birmingham is still segregated, we have certain narratives of how Birmingham came to be. Your Joseph Chamberlains and Matthew Boltons, in terms of industrialisation, made the city the way it is, but what was the role of people who were my ancestors in all of that?
"Until that is addressed in a deep way, we won’t have cohesion."
'I have seen the strength of immigrants'
Hub co-founder Immy Kaur is passionate about the positive impact of immigration. The child of immigrants, she said she will be informed by immigration policy when she casts her vote.
"Immigration and Brexit will influence the vote for me - because I've seen the strength of immigrants. My parents are immigrants. On my first day of school I couldn't speak English and Birmingham welcomed me.
"I have made an incredible life here but I've done that all knowing the deep challenge that this country has with where my parents are from. I can see how the interdependence is important without ignoring that past.
"Whether Brexit was right or wrong, it was never about that, it was full of lies, loads of laws were broken, it was a way of using immigration to distract people from things that have gone wrong and been cut, from libraries and children's centres, things that built up a social fabric, have then been cut and used immigrants as a scapegoat."
Ms Kaur is less sure about which party will actually get her vote, but is appreciative of seeing the bigger picture, rather than agreeing with every policy a party offers.
She said: "I don't want 10 more years of hostile environment, of cutting everything that is important, privatising the NHS, making us believe that some of those who added to this country, who had their own lives ravaged, who had to build their own lives, are to blame. We could have built a democracy with world class education, housing and welfare, we could have done that.
"I’m not sure whether this is the election of a generation because if it's a hung parliament, we will do this again.
"Everyone should get out and I'm not here to tell people how to vote, but I’m keen that people are angry and they are registering to vote and getting out to vote."
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- Watch Dermot Murnaghan live from 9pm on 12 December
- See the exit poll at 10pm
- Watch KayBurley@Breakfast election special on 13 December
- Find out what happens next in All Out Politics special from 9am with Adam Boulton