With just a week to go before the local elections, allegations of racial discrimination, Islamophobia and antisemitism are plaguing the main political parties.

Research by Operation Black Vote (OBV) today launched its research collated by FOIs relating to Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic.

OBV looked at 123 local authorities in England.

The research figures overall tell us the numbers “don’t look bad” of the 7306 councillors in the 123 single-tier local authorities, 1026 are BAME.

However, 40 of these local authorities have only one or no BAME councillors at all: 12 have one BAME councillor; 28 have none, moreover, these councils control areas that have BAME populations ranging from 6per cent - 12per cent.

Barnet Borough Council has a significant BAME representation gap. While Barnet’s population is estimated to be about 39 per cent BAME, only about 16 per cent of its councillors are from BAME communities.

Ashok Viswanathan, OBV Deputy Director said:

“I initiated this report because it's so often the local that is political and impacts on our day to day lives: from rubbish collections and local education to housing and roads. Only a strong democratic voice, alongside social action can bring long lasting change.

“We are asking for people to take diversity into account when making their decisions to select candidates of course there will be ideal candidates who do not physically represent their constituents.

“If we look at Jeremy Corbyn, he encouraged a large number of young people to vote but if we look at Barack Obama when he won the presidency the inspiration it provided to young black children can’t be ignored.

“There is a massive lack of trust in the political institutions in this country and we as an organisation have also laid down the gauntlet and challenged the black community to get involved because authorities won’t worry about reflecting the community’s best interests if they don’t vote and get involved.”

Accompanying their report a number of recommendations have also been suggested by the OBV:

• All political parties undertake a BAME democratic audit of members, staff and elected officials at local and national level

• All political parties acknowledge their BAME democratic deficit and have a comprehensive plan to balance the disparities

• All political parties to have an unprecedented BAME recruitment, retention and promotion drive for BAME members at local and national level

• National and Local Government agencies to undertake the largest voter registration drive ever seen in the UK

• Schools to have mandatory comprehensive citizenship lessons

• National and local Government to support third sector initiatives that help bring BAME individuals to the civic and political space