Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of ethnic minority politicians in the United Kingdom


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus. There is a numerical prevalence of delete votes, with the argument that "ethnic minority" is not a well-defined criterion, at least not in the UK. (Note that many delete votes were cast before sources have been added). This argument has been countered by the keep votes, who argues that we still have reliable sources (some of which have been added) which call certain politicians "ethnic minority politicians", and at least these should be included. I do not at this point see any consensus between these viewpoints, and invite therefore all the discussion participants to return to the talk page and discuss the inclusion criteria, the list on case-by-case basis, and possibly the name of the list.--Ymblanter (talk) 08:28, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

List of ethnic minority politicians in the United Kingdom

 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

This list does not cite a single source. At present, it is a WP:BLP and WP:OR mess. I started an RfC on the article talk page to solicit opinions on whether it might be possible to establish criteria for inclusion in the list. During the discussion, it has become apparent that consensus on these criteria is unlikely to be reached, and a number of contributors have suggested that deletion would be the best option. Note also that the article was created by confirmed sockpuppet User:Comte de Mountstuart. Cordless Larry (talk) 21:58, 13 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Delete. An inherently problematic list, given the obvious difficulty in arriving at any objective criteria for inclusion. What constitutes an 'ethnic minority' is clearly a matter of opinion rather than fact, and likewise the question as to whether an individual is a member of a particular minority or not isn't something that Wikipeda should be making definitive statements about. Ethnicity is a fluid and contextual construct, and as such not one amenable to a reductionist list-compilation that obscures more than it illuminates. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:01, 13 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Ethnic groups-related deletion discussions. Cordless Larry (talk) 22:09, 13 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Delete After a lengthy talkpage discussion no-one could define inclusion criteria. Most of the ethnicities listed aren't real ethnicities and most seem to be based on where the politician was born. Therefore the article is full of BLP violations, and since the main contributor has been banned I doubt anyone else will want to sort it out. I don't even think the article can be referenced as not many British politicians are asked "what is your ethnicity?". -- haminoon  ( talk ) 22:13, 13 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Delete Per the above explanations. --92slim (talk) 00:38, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of United Kingdom-related deletion discussions.  lavender |(formerly HMSSolent )| lambast  00:40, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions.  lavender |(formerly HMSSolent )| lambast  00:40, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

*Delete per all of the above. An unsourced, unclear inclusion BLP-mess.  Lugnuts  Dick Laurent is dead 08:17, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete - per above —Мандичка YO 😜 01:13, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete per above. An unreferenced complete mess of a list with no clear criteria for inclusion. This is beyond rescue. Timrollpickering (talk) 01:38, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete. for the reasons I already explained on the talk page, e.g. dubious classification based on racialism (Boris Johnson listed as 'British Turk' because of a Turkish great-grand-father and several other similar historical cases), being a member of an 'ethnic minority' is genetically defined by the main contributor as having some even distant 'non White' ancestry. Minorities observer (talk) 11:14, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 11:48, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 11:48, 14 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Delete. per above, a WP:V and largely WP:BLP nightmare with no clear criteria in sight. It almost qualifies for speedy deletion under WP:G5 as one of the creations of a banned and blocked user who made, using various accounts and detected IPs, at least 56% of the edits and nearly all the substantial contributions (excluding formatting, housekeeping and reverts as block evasions became apparent). NebY (talk) 20:27, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment the concept of an "ethnic minority MP" is not a new one, even if "politician" is a little vague.  See for example The Guardian, on the subject of women and minority ethnic MPs.
 * Arguments that "ethnic minority-ness" cannot be defined are spurious if RS's do it for us.
 * All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 00:04, 16 June 2015 (UTC).


 * That Guardian article doesn't appear to be written for non-British readers and doesn't define who counts as an ethnic minority. It confused me even more with "black and minority" - does that mean that Black Britons aren't ethnic minorities? But who are? Do Welsh SMPs, Jewish atheists who strongly identify with Jewish culture, Turkish people, Irish Travellers, Boris Johnson, Basque people count? -- haminoon  ( talk ) 08:38, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
 * We don't need to decide this, RS do it for us. For example 0n 26 June the following headline appeared "Yvette Cooper Wants To Double Number Of Black, Asian, And Ethnic Minority Labour MPs (Huffington Post UK ,Graeme Demianyk).  We learned that the classification is "BAME".  Clearly if it is desired to "double" the number of a certain group of MPs it must be defined who is in that group.  (Note that this could have probably been achieved by not standing against "BAME" Conservatives. )  I do agree that assigning people to groups for "representation" purposes is a fraught issue, however is not not our (Wikipedia's) issue. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 17:17, 28 June 2015 (UTC).


 * Terms such as "Black, Asian, And Ethnic Minority" have always confused me, because they suggest that Black and Asian people in the UK are not ethnic minorities. Cordless Larry (talk) 09:37, 30 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Keep. I just added -- with a moment's googling -- three RS sources; there are many more one can cull from this google search, as a start. And here. So the primary assertion in the nomination is no longer the case; there are now RS refs, and the prospect of adding more, from high quality RSs.
 * This is an accepted cross-section discussed by the RSs and Parliament, as in the Guardian articles "Record numbers of female and minority-ethnic MPs in new House of Commons" and "Parliament failing to represent UK's ethnic diversity; Commons needs 117 black and minority ethnic MPs to reflect population, but only 27 are not white", and the Parliament paper "Characteristics of the new House of Commons: key issues for the 2010 Parliament; Gender and ethnicity".
 * AfD is not for cleanup, as I expect most of us who are seasoned know. The fact that a sock created this is of course unfortunate. But irrelevant in an AfD discussion.  The deletion decision is based on the merits of the list intersection; not on the merits of the original creator. Rich is completely correct in his note above that arguments that "ethnic minority-ness" cannot be defined are spurious if RS's do it for us -- which they do. Perhaps User:DGG will have thoughts on this, as he often addresses thorny issues. Epeefleche (talk) 04:30, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your typically well thought-out comments, Epeefleche. I just have one query about sourcing. Are you suggesting that if and when we come to find sources for each entry in the list, we'd need to find one that describes the particular politician as a member of an ethnic minority, or would it be sufficient for the source to describe them as, say, British Indian? I agree that there are plenty of sources establishing that the intersection is notable, but the question for me is how we then set criteria for who counts as an ethnic minority. The first sourcing approach gets us around this, but I don't think the second does, as we then have to judge whether we consider British Indians to be an ethnic minority (which doesn't sound problematic with British Indians, but when we get to Iain Duncan Smith and his Japanese great grandmother it all gets a bit complicated). Cordless Larry (talk) 08:24, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Hi Larry. Inasmuch as this is an AfD discussion, I think that we should table that issue for the talkpage. As we typically do when faced with the birfurcated (though not completely unrelated) questions of: a) "should we delete this list?", and b) "what should be included in this list?" The second question is one properly had on the talkpage, once the determination is made to keep the list. For now, all the refs I supplied were ones that indicated that the politician in question was an "ethnic minority". This list published by Parliament of dozens of ethnic minority politicians (including over 40 "ethnic minority Members of the House of Lords" in October 2013) can be used to provide support for much of this wikipedia list. I imagine that the vast majority of the list can be supported by such sources, that mention "ethnic minority." Any that don't can be discussed on the talkpage; but that issue would IMHO be secondary to us keeping the list.  --Epeefleche (talk) 09:02, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Good points again, although the difficulty of establishing criteria was a key reason why this was nominated for deletion, so I do see that as part of the AfD. Cordless Larry (talk) 09:16, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
 * If you agree as you do that the intersection is notable, and you by your wp:before search found RSs such as those I set forth above that support some (in this case, many) of the names listed belonging to the intersection, I don't believe that the fact that there may be disputes as to whether certain individuals should be included in the list is a valid reason to nominate an article for deletion.
 * As WP:ATD states, furthermore: "Disputes over page content are usually not dealt with by deleting the page, except in severe cases.... Deletion discussions that are really unresolved content disputes may be closed by an uninvolved editor, and referred to the talk page or other appropriate forum." Epeefleche (talk) 09:25, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Consensus on the talk page was to nominate the article for deletion, so I did. If you want to close this and take it back to the talk page, please feel free. Cordless Larry (talk) 09:30, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Understood. Thanks. Perhaps the talk page discussion didn't consider the above sources, such as the Parliament ref that sources much of the list. Or wp:ATD, etc.  I've now sourced 75 entries to RSs; more can be done, and non-RS-sourced entries can be deleted.  I feel that I'm too involved here to do what you suggest, though I appreciate the offer.  I'll wait for someone else to take action, either along those lines or at the end of the AfD (where a closer will apply the rule I expect that guideline-based !votes carry the day, and it is not a raw numbers vote). I think that we are in agreement that the intersection itself is notable, and the sources supplied so far are clearly RSs and clearly support inclusion of dozens of people on the list. The article needs clean-up, certainly, but cleanup is not an AfD matter. I think that at least those identified by RSs as "ethnic minority" belong in the list.  If the RSs disagree, that can be discussed in the list -- that is an area where a list has greater utility than a category. It may be reasonable to require sources to so identify list members, as there do seem to be many sources that use that phrase for members of the intersection. Epeefleche (talk) 09:57, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Your sources are press articles based on the journalists 'common sense' definition of 'ethnic minority' and a document by Wood & Cracknell where 'ethnic minority' is equated with people with 'non White background'. Both 'sources' may not be considered as reliable to list people on an ethnic base. Moreover, by the time the first 'mixed race' and 'non White' lords and MPs entered the Parliament, it was either through their White aristocratic filiation or as symbols either of critics/support of British imperialism and/or of the unicity of the working class, just like Roestam Effendi in the Netherlands. Not as 'ethnic minority politicians'. It is a-historical to use the present mediatic (not scientific) and somewhat racist concept of 'ethnic minority based on non White background' to analyse/classify XIXth and beginning of XXth century political situations. In my opinion, it would be much more useful to recycle the information in the press articles in specific sections of every WP article on United Kingdom general elections as I did in the past on the French WP for the Turkish electors and MPs in the 2005 German federal elections (I regret now I didn't source it correctly then, but I was a 1st year beginner on WP) or (more sourced) for the 'diversity' candidates to the 2008 French municipal elections. Bare lists of politicians for these matters (and others) are useless and even noxious. --Minorities observer (talk) 11:12, 20 June 2015 (UTC)
 * As you say: "Your sources are press articles". Yes. RSs. Of course we may rely on RSs. Whatever makes you think not (excluding your OR as to the reliability of the RS here). We follow Wikipedia guidelines, not individual editors' OR. That's the DNA of notability, per GNG. Furthermore, we have Parliament itself as a source. You call the RS-supported identification of race "racist". That's blatant POV. The RSs and parliament so identify the individuals; it is therefore appropriate for us to do so. Your personal feelings that youdon'tlikeit aside. It doesn't matter whether we are speaking of race or nationality or place of birth -- if the RSs report it, it is appropriate for us to report it, even if some individual editors may seek to have it hidden from Wikipedia. This is obviously an intersection heavily covered by both scholarly articles and RSs. We don't hide those because "Minorities observer" wants to hide it. Epeefleche (talk) 23:06, 20 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Parliamentary sources such as Wood & Cracknell say themselves that they are not reliable: "Analysis of ethnic minority representation is difficult, because ethnicity is both sensitive, and difficult to define. Work such as this generally relies on self-definition. The UK Census includes an ‘Ethnicity’ section, as do most staff surveys within major public services. However, it is not a mandatory requirement for Members of the House of Commons or the House of Lords to disclose such information. Data on the ethnicity of Members is unlikely, therefore, to be 100% accurate at any given time...". Andrew D. (talk) 21:25, 21 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Keep. For following reasons:
 * Although there are few citations at moment, give time for more to come up. (I am glad to see the earliest Anglo-Indians in Parliament mentioned cited, never knew PM Lord Liverpool had been one.)
 * This list is cross-referenced to the article Records of Members of Parliament of the United Kingdom and is a solution to the latter article becoming too long.
 * It ably gives, at a glance, members of the House of Commons, House of Lords, European Parliament British MEPs, Scottish Parliament, Welsh and Northern Ireland Assembly.

In short I feel it is better that it be kept and improved/updated where/when necessary, rather than deleted. If the article were a house I would say "Don't demolish it, it has potential for improvement." Cloptonson (talk) 08:27, 20 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete - as the nominator says, there are no objective criteria for inclusion, beginning with Lord Liverpool who apparently had one Indian grandparent. Besides, the color of the skin is irrelevant to one's political position, there are white Tories and black Tories, white Socialists and black Socialists etc. It's a POVFORK from lists of all members of any political body (legislative or executive), because the notion that a black man doesn't represent white constituents, or vice-versa, promotes racism. Kraxler (talk) 21:27, 20 June 2015 (UTC)
 * The criteria is "described by Parliament and the other RSs as such." Arguments as to the scope of the criteria are appropriate for the talkpage. But not, as indicated, an appropriate argument for AfD. See the above. Including WP:ATD: "Disputes over page content are usually not dealt with by deleting the page, except in severe cases.... Deletion discussions that are really unresolved content disputes may be closed by an uninvolved editor, and referred to the talk page or other appropriate forum." Epeefleche (talk) 23:06, 20 June 2015 (UTC)
 * This is "a severe case" as described in the rules. To promote racism or ethnic segregation is not debatable. Kraxler (talk) 14:50, 21 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks for clarifying your pov. It is not one that Wikipedia guidelines support. And is misguided to boot.
 * We don't delete all mentions of the races of people at the Project. On the assertion that -- to know the race of notable individuals (such as members of Parliament??) is to promote racism.
 * Your !vote, based on that non-consensus view, is therefor of little if any weight at this AfD. As we count !votes based on wp guidelines and practices.
 * As an aside - your assumption that it promotes racism, rather than the opposite, is at odds with the apparent tones and the focuses of the scholarly articles and RS articles that appear as refs in the article. Which are certainly not pro-racism ... or "pro-segregation" in the slightest. What's next - will you seek to delete Obama's race from his article? Or the List of black Britons? Or the category Category:Black British people? Epeefleche (talk) 04:26, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks for assuming bad faith, and for advancing a fallacious argument which has nothing to do with my rationale. Also thanks for !voting in a discussion and then assess consensus of it. Certainly having !voted "keep" you are absolutely neutral here. As to state the race of an individual in his bio, that's a legitimate topic. So is Black British people. And now back to the beginning: My argument was "the color of the skin is irrelevant to one's political position, there are white Tories and black Tories, white Socialists and black Socialists" which makes a list of ethnic minority politicians a pointy POVFORK. Besides, it presumes that, as I said above "a black man doesn't represent white constituents, or vice-versa" which is absurd. By the way, Lord Liverpool was certainly a member of an ethnic minority, with his Indian grandmother, scholarly sources certainly say so, and at the time he was hailed as the first Indian British member of Parliament, a pity that the early 19th-century Times was not on-line yet to give us a link. Kraxler (talk) 15:12, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
 * The early 19th Century Times *is* online, and has been used as a source on here before. RobinCarmody (talk) 16:55, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I doubt that the term "ethnic minority" was in use in the 19th century, however. Cordless Larry (talk) 17:00, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Give me a link, then, which says "Lord Liverpool (or what his name was at the time) is a member of an ethnic minority" or "is an Anglo Indian". Kraxler (talk) 17:38, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Sorry, was that comment directed at me, or at RobinCarmody? Cordless Larry (talk) 18:39, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Sorry, you misunderstood me. I agree that newspapers at that time probably wouldn't have used such language.  I was simply pointing out that the Times Digital Archive exists because the comment above seemed to suggest that it didn't - not specifying which language it would or wouldn't have used. RobinCarmody (talk) 23:05, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Never mind, nobody would call a 100% "white" man a member of an ethnic minority anyway. See below for the explanation. Well, he was removed from the list... Kraxler (talk) 11:17, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus. Relisting comment: Most of the discussion was before additional sources were found, so even though there has been a lot of discussion overall, it seems reasonable to let this go for another week. -- RoySmith (talk) 14:47, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, -- RoySmith (talk) 14:47, 21 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete It seems too selective in its view of what constitutes an ethnic minority and lacks historical perspective. There are numerous groups which are ignored and any number of special cases.  These include:
 * The Scots clearly constitute a significant ethnicity to the extent of almost getting independence recently. And then there's the Irish and Welsh, of course, plus the smaller groups such as the Cornish, Manx, Shetlanders, &c.
 * Sundry Europeans such as Gisela Stuart (née Gisela Gschaider) or Daniel Kawczynski
 * Jews such as Disraeli or Gerald Kaufman
 * Corner cases like Boris Johnson who was born in the USA and has a Turkish heritage. Churchill had an American mother so we might as well include him too.

One could argue endlessly about this. Notice that we don't have an article entitled ethnic minority — it redirects to the page minority group which states "There is no legal definition of national (ethnic) minorities in international law." So, you need to sort the more general question before you can start to use the concept to make lists of this sort. Andrew D. (talk) 21:13, 21 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, I think the "one could argue endlessly about this" point is why this AfD is not cleanup - because inclusion criteria might be an essentially unresolvable issue. Cordless Larry (talk) 21:49, 21 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Keep (changed from delete, above, and struck-out). The issue about being unsourced has been addressed thanks to the fantastic work by . The main crux of the argument lies on "what is an ethnic minority" and AfD is not for cleanup. This issue needs to be defined on the talkpage.  Lugnuts  Dick Laurent is dead 07:18, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep this is not an artificial category constructed by us, but an actual category used by the UK political system and widely reprinted in British news sources and academic discussions. Theoretical considerations about whether we would have made it a category of our own only on our general principles for categories are therefore irrelevant. There will of course always be some disputes about who ought to be in, which is frequently the case and a characteristic of most descriptions of groups of people. As a relevant example, there are debates on who counts as British, but we still use that term for categories.  DGG ( talk ) 14:54, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
 * There is no 'system' in UK politics which classifies politicians by ethnicity. AndyTheGrump (talk) 14:57, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Various official UK publications over a number of years so categorize politicians, as do a number of scholarly articles over a number of years. Some of these are reflected in the List refs. There does seem to be a systematic classification -- nothing suggests a non-systematic random classification by the government and academics. This is as DGG says something constructed by others, and not by WP editors. Epeefleche (talk) 23:36, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Which 'official publications' demonstrate any 'systematic classification'? And where are the criteria for this 'systematic classification' documented? AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:24, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
 * The guideline at WP is reflection in RSs. The guideline is not that there be a "demonstration" of the "criteria" for a "systematic classification" used by the RS. If it were -- we would have a problem with lists of women, lists of citizens, and lists of people born in place X, as our RSs do not delineate how they arrive at the statement that person a is a woman, is a citizen of b, and was born in place c, and whether they look at birth records or require the person to drop their underwear.
 * Furthermore, as I indicated before, the official UK publications and scholarly articles ... a number of which are reflected in the article ... seem to be a systematic classification rather than a non-systematic random classification. And, as DGG says, this classifying is constructed by others, not by wp editors. Epeefleche (talk) 00:02, 25 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Comment There's usually clear cut sources for MPs first elected from 1987 onwards (Abbott, Boateng, Grant and Vaz were much covered as a breakthrough) but even some after that seem to be random ancestry inclusions - Seb Coe and Iain Duncan Smith spring to mind and nobody ever proclaimed IDS as the first BAME leader of a major party. Before 1987 it's frankly a mess because ethnicity wasn't thought about in such terms at the time and so with the exceptions of Dadabhai Naoroji, Sir Mancherjee Bhownagree and Shapurji Saklatvala it's down to random assertions about mixed ancestry in a way that none of the politicians in question would have recognised at the time - the UK never had formal racial segregation much less a one-drop rule. Jonathan Sayeed is almost a classic problem case - he's generally rejected the BAME categorisation to the point there could be BLP issues but others have at times applied it and this reflects in the sources being rather mixed on the subject. And Sayeed is a case of someone who was active politically at a time with a relatively clear concept - earlier cases didn't have that. Timrollpickering (talk) 16:31, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm supportive of entries that do not have RS support being struck. That can be done boldly, or following article talk page discussion. In any event, that's not an AfD issue, as AfD is not for cleanup. But rather an issue for the article, and its talkpage. The narrow AfD issue is whether this list (presuming entries are appropriate referenced) is an appropriate list. The answer to that I believe, for the above reasons, is clearly yes. Tx. Epeefleche (talk) 21:29, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I followed your instruction, and removed Lord Liverpool from the list, the claim that he was Anglo-Indian or a member of an ethnic minority was unsourced. Kraxler (talk) 17:38, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
 * You removed him from the Commons list but not from the Lords list. Also, it took me less than three seconds to browse the article and find a source about his Indian ancestry. Why did you remove him when you could find the source in so little time?--The Theosophist (talk) 19:03, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
 * The information over his ancestry was already on wikipedia, and it is not at all as clear as you say: his great-grandmother was a 'Portuguese Indian Creole', meaning she possibly was herself of both European and Indian descent. To consider anyone as 'Anglo-Indian' on this ground is obviously misplaced and a proof of ignorance of what ethnicity is and is not (not some classification based on 'one drop of blood'). --Minorities observer (talk) 07:39, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
 * "Portuguese Indian Creole" means a person born in India of white European colonizing clarified, see below Portuguese parents who went to live in the Portuguese colony of Goa and adjacent regions. Kraxler (talk) 11:03, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Actually the Portuguese do not consider an individual as 'white' or 'non white', belonging to the 'majority' or to any 'minority' in the same way as the Brits, US Americans or South Africans, and many Portuguese, even in Europe (incl. the Azores, Madeira and mainland Portugal) have mixed ancestries but are considered as 'mainstream Portuguese', except if they chose otherwise (ex. the deputy Celeste Correia whos comes from Cape Verde but 'can pass for Portuguese', unlike some of her 'darker sisters'). Moreover, many Indians are no less 'white' than most Portuguese with European ancestry, only cultural racists would believe such nonsense. --Minorities observer (talk) 12:43, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
 * You are absolutely correct, Minorities observer. That's the reason why I advocate deletion of this article, ethnic segregation or classification is nonsense, especially in politics where people should be considered by their political stance and not by their skin colour or ancestry. I used "White" Portuguese here above, looking at it from the creator of this article's point-of-view, to make it clear that the inclusion of Lord Liverpool was blatantly lacking objectivity. My wife is of mixed ancestry, and my children are too. I never knew personally any of my own grandparents, and only God knows where their ancestors came from, and I couldn't care less. I would never vote for anybody because he claims to have the same skin color as mine own, to vote for somebody I would ask him about his politics. Kraxler (talk) 12:43, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
 * So, you voted for the deletion of the page because of your ideology? I do not think that this is allowed. The list should be kept because it is very encyclopedic to note how much have immigrants integrated in their new countries in the last few years.--The Theosophist (talk) 21:12, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Thesophis is precisely correct here. And the closer, following wp guidelines, will discount those !votes made by editors on such a basis, rather than in accord with wp guidelines. Epeefleche (talk) 22:53, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
 * My delete vote is based 100% on Wikipedia policy and guidelines. It's a WP:POINTy WP:POVFORK. The closer will read the whole discussion and will weigh the strength of the arguments. Kraxler (talk) 15:47, 30 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I beg to differ. But as you say, the closer will decide. Epeefleche (talk) 22:47, 30 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Quoting you: “ethnic segregation or classification is nonsense, especially in politics where people should be considered by their political stance and not by their skin colour or ancestry” When you cite this for your “delete” vote, you clearly delve into what is your personal opinion concerning both race and politics. Whether or not you are right and whether or not we agree, this is not neutral voting based solely on whether the subject is encyclopedic/notable/useful. I demonstrated that there is nothing racialist (I am not saying racist) with this list, as it is clearly encyclopedic, notable and useful to take note of all these immigrants who managed to integrate that much in their new country. In fact, taking note of it, can be thought as an appraisal of their efforts (now I get POVy). Either way, what you believe about these people should play no role at all when you vote on the encyclopedicity/notability/usefulness of this list, and I think that I have defended the latter well.--The Theosophist (talk) 01:14, 3 July 2015 (UTC)
 * My argument is common sense, not a personal opinion. My vote is based on policy and guidelines, as I reiterated several times above. That there are "ethnic minority" members can be mentioned in the full list of members of parliament, and can be highlighted there. There are "ethnic minority" members of many political bodies in many countries, but there is so far only one article about them, this one. I know about WP:OTHERSTUFF, but this shows that "ethnic minority" membership is not considered an encyclopedic subject, but this one article was created by a single editor to make a WP:POINT, and is based on a single source as pointed out above. Also there is the totally unencyclopedic classification of "black, Asian and ethnic minority" by a source who apparently doesn't know what they're talking about. Thus it also fails WP:GNG. No need to rehash it, it's all been said. Also I know that AfD is not a headcount, but the !vote is currently 9 delete to 4 keep, so the keep !voters need some really good arguments instead of just pure POV pushing. Kraxler (talk) 19:01, 3 July 2015 (UTC)
 * The problem with a source that states that he has Indian ancestry is (as discussed above) that we then have to make a judgement about whether that makes him a member of an ethnic minority. Cordless Larry (talk) 19:07, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
 * My comment was an answer to the statement “the claim that he was Anglo-Indian [...] was unsourced”.--The Theosophist (talk) 19:11, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
 * OK, thanks for the clarification. I'm just concerned that it's a slippery slope once we start having to make judgements about who counts as an ethnic minority and who doesn't. Ideally the source would state that he was from an ethnic minority, and then we avoid the problem. Cordless Larry (talk) 19:13, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I knew that his bio says that he had one Indian grandmother, but that doesn't make anybody a member of an ethnic minority. It would be OR to say so; We need a reliable source which says so. I asked here above for a link, but got only speculation. On the other side, a source mentioned in the article (The Guardian) says "the first ethnic minority MP was elected in 1892". Kraxler (talk) 10:56, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Comments about individual belong on the article talk page. All pages dealing with this subject tend to have a few entries that need discussion. The criteria for these discussions should not be whether the person actually is in an ethnic minority, but whether they have been reported as such in a political context. The title may need some adjustment  DGG ( talk ) 19:40, 26 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Delete. Consensus with some of the above comments, esp the first few.  Heyyouoverthere (talk) 00:08, 4 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete problematic given that nobody can precisely define what an "ethnic minority politician" is. For instance, I'd classify Máirtín Mag Aonghusa and Nicola Sturgeon as such, but I'm sure that many here in this discussion would disagree with that assessment.  Likewise, the sources that do talk about this don't have a consistent definition, leading to a floppy "well this source says they are, and this one doesn't" sort of argument that doesn't lead to a consistent or useful end result for our readers.  Lankiveil (speak to me) 03:36, 4 July 2015 (UTC).


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