Keighley Tory MP Kris Hopkins has been warned he faces defeat at the next general election if he fails to listen to the concerns of ethnic minority voters.

Cross-party group Operation Black Vote (OBV) has found the number of seats where black and Asian voters could decide the outcome has rocketed by 70 per cent.

It has listed Keighley and Bradford East, held by Liberal Democrat David Ward, as two constituencies up for grabs.

But both MPs dispute the idea they need to adjust their appeal, insisting all voters were, in the main, interested in the same core issues.

Mr Hopkins said: “The key messages are always the same – the need to get the economy going, about education, about health.”

The OBV study highlighted how the ethnic minority vote was now bigger than the majority of the sitting MP in no fewer than 168 marginal seats.

Simon Woolley, of OBV, said: “It means black and minority ethnic communities have a stronger political lever than ever. This research is a political game-changer. Above all, if ethnic minority communities and politicians respond positively to it, democracy wins.”

In Keighley, Mr Hopkins has a majority of 2,940 and there are 11,654 ethnic minority voters.