Out of touch

Your lead report, “Sunak in warning of extremist forces ‘trying to tear us apart’ ” (2 March), has Rishi Sunak again proving how out of touch he is bystatingthatsuccessdepends on hard work, not by “the God you believe in”. For many, particularly in ethnic minorities, it’s faith that defines them and fosters the “empathy and compassion” Sunak requested in Friday’s speech. Our late queen said that religion and culture can be “sources of difference and conflict but the irony is that every religion has something to say about tolerance and respecting others”. Perhaps Sunak had the 9 million economically inactive in mind amidst record levels of immigration. Unlike Elizabeth, however, it’s not faith that drives his call to service, cynics may say it is the accumulation of wealth.

Sunak’s party is much to blame for polarisation in politics, with Suella Braverman and Lee Anderson stoking the very extremism Sunak said is “trying to tear us apart”. Moreover, by disengaging with the electorate in places like Rochdale the major parties neglect a moral obligation to uphold democracy. Increasingly nasty threats to MPS have brought the issue of racial discord home, with extremist reaction to the Gaza conflict symptomatic of failing multiculturalism. Black Lives Matter has done little to bring ethnic minorities together and many feel increasingly marginalised, particularly with the major political parties’ alienating much of public opinion on Gaza.

This leaves the door open for extremists like George Galloway.galloway’s success, rather than being “beyond alarming”, as Sunak sees it, is a consequence of Labour and the Tories taking the electorate for granted and failing to address the malaise in multicultural Britain.

Neil Anderson

Edinburgh