UK’s Conservative Party no longer a bastion of white privilege

As British Hindus decorated their homes with lights this Diwali, ushering in propensity and good tidings for the year to come, they also welcomed the UK’s first Hindu prime minister, Rishi Sunak. A previous chancellor and leadership contender, Sunak’s rise was not a stroke of good luck, but rather he was fast-tracked by a Conservative Party that has spent the last decade making itself more diverse and reflective of British society.

Something has changed in what is arguably the world’s oldest political party. Once a bastion of white privilege, the party fielded its first

Black secretary of state only last year. However, despite a perceived hesitance to reform itself, it now boasts an Asian prime minister and home secretary, foreign and trade secretaries from Black backgrounds and a party chairman who was born in Baghdad.

The Tories’ transformation is in part owing to the policies of former Prime Minister David Cameron, who began forcing infamously independent local party associations to embrace female and ethnic minority candidates. Despite the Labour Party consistently doing much better among ethnic minority voters, the Conservative Party has employed a more long-term strategy. By fielding ethnic minority candidates in safe (mainly white) constituencies, it has shown a commitment to making the party more diverse.

Looking at leading ethnic minority Tories through a broader historical perspective, however, does make the current trend less surprising. Though Britain is a world away from its empire, its long and complicated imperial past supports the Conservative Party’s makeup. By virtue of empire, the UK has connections with diverse territories and peoples, many of whom make up an important part of modern British society.

Today’s diverse Cabinet is not only reflective of British society, but also of the UK’s association with geographic regions whose people often saw themselves as part of a wider British project and in administrative terms quite literally as British overseas citizens. Where the Labour Party’s narrative of ethnic minorities focuses on them being the product of the worst excesses of empire, the Conservative Party has positioned itself as the party of strivers. In the same way that a grocer’s daughter, Margaret Thatcher, became one of the world’s first female heads of government, the son of Punjabi immigrants is now prime minister.

However, the diversity of the Cabinet does not reflect a diversity of educational or class backgrounds. What 45 percent of the Cabinet share is that they graduated from either Oxford or Cambridge. Ethnic minority Conservative ministers may not have much in common with ordinary voters, but they are better prepared for high office.

Though the party could not hope of surviving electorally had it remained the London pastime of country squires, it must also take into account that the demographics of London and the South East are by no means present throughout the country. Although 16 percent of the Cabinet is of an ethnic minority background, nationally such groups only make up 13 percent of the population. In Scotland and Wales, ethnic minority communities are even smaller, standing at below 5 percent.

Despite the clear questions around educational exclusivity, Britain’s new more diverse politics is something to be welcomed. In neighboring France, which is home to Europe’s largest Muslim population, a female president — let alone one from the Maghreb — is almost inconceivable. In the same way that the Conservative Party led the way with female leadership, it is doing so once again by embracing multiculturalism. Nevertheless, for a party that has seen three chairmen in two years, it would do well to focus on competence over background, given how incompetence has led to the collapse of its last two governments.