Immigration key player in Brexit poll

On Thursday, UK voted in the Brexit poll, to decide whether to stay in the European Union (EU) or exit it, in what has been labelled as a neck and neck race. The close contest has had a number of people on the campaign trail, including British Prime Minister David Cameron. 

At the other end were people like Priti Patel, a British Asian minister were striving to persuade ethnic minorities to support leaving the EU with a message of ‘fair’ immigration and stronger ties to the Commonwealth. Despite polls showing Black and Asian Britons are more proEU than the rest of the population, Priti Patel led the charge to win over the fastest growing section of the electorate ahead of Thursday’s referendum. 

Leave campaigners have used worries about migration from the EU to tell millions of voters whose families hail from former British colonies that a Brexit could make it easier for people to come to Britain from places where their family roots lie. Whilst there is free movement for EU citizens, some British Asians are particularly unhappy at visa rules that apply to non-EU migrants, making it difficult to bring over relatives for social functions or staff for restaurants. 

“This is about having an immigration policy that brings fairness back and takes discrimination off our Commonwealth countries and off communities like the Indian community, the Pakistani community,” Patel told Reuters, as a dozen praying women in colourful traditional dress chanted at the temple. 

There is no official definition of an ethnic minority but 14 percent of people in England and Wales identified themselves as non-white in the 2011 census, and nearly 20 percent said they were not white British, a sizeable group that could sway the outcome of a vote which polls show is too close to call. But the murder of British lawmaker Jo Cox, who had backed refugee causes, has raised concerns about the tone of the debate on immigration and could make some minority voters think twice about backing the Brexit campaign, experts and voters said.