ABSTRACT
The Census of 1991 indicated that the ethnic minorities accounted for 5.5 per cent of the population of Great Britain. This same land mass (which excludes Northern Ireland) elects 84 members to the European Parliament, 641 members to the Westminster Parliament and almost 25,000 persons to serve as representatives on the principal local government authorities. If the ethnic minorities were to be represented exclusively by members of their own communities then one would expect that there would be about five MEPS and 35 MPS whose origins were either Asian or black. The reality is that there are no MEPS and only nine MPs with any claim to membership of the ethnic minority communities. In terms of this kind of representation then the ethnic minorities are grossly underrepresented.
