Racism and Sunak’s bid to be Tory leader
BIAS OF RANK AND FILE MEMBERS ‘COULD HELP TRUSS WIN’
HAS racism been a factor in the Conservative party leadership contest?
Former chancellor and leadership candidate Rishi Sunak doesn’t think so. However, there was a letter in the Times last week which said: “It is a shame that the Tory party members could not see beyond Sunak’s skin colour. They have doomed Britain with an incompetent PM in waiting.”
The question of Rishi’s ethnicity will be an issue for post-match analysis. He has denied there is any racism in the Conservative party, but then Rishi can hardly make that accusation when he is appealing to 160,000 members to vote for him.
He gave an interview to the associate editor of the Daily Telegraph, Christopher Hope, who said to his readers and podcast listeners: “Mr Sunak insisted there was not a race problem in the Conservative party, citing his own advancement in the party as evidence.”
Rishi told Hope: “Of course not. We are literally living proof that, not just our party is not like that, but our country is not like that.
“It’s one of the most extraordinary, wonderful things about our country that someone like me, with my family’s story, could even be sitting here having this conversation with you. My grandparents emigrated here 60 years ago. They built a life for themselves.
“I was chancellor of the exchequer. I wasn’t even the first ethnic minority chancellor. I was the second in a row (after Pakistani origin Sajid Javid). And there’s a third after me (Iraqi origin Nadhim Zahawi).
“And I’m in a race to be the leader of our party and prime minister of our country.”
Rishi becoming chancellor has nothing to do with the rank and file membership. His appointment – and those of Javid and Zahawi – were made by prime minister Boris Johnson, who ushered in the most diverse government in British political history.
Others have argued that the Conservative [arty could hardly be racist when so many ethnic minority candidates – from Javid to Kemi Badenoch, Suella Braverman, Zahawi and Rehman Chishti – put themselves forward to be the next leader.
Actually, they were self-selected. Also, with the exception of Rishi, all either withdrew or were knocked out.
There is no doubt that the Conservative party has changed beyond recognition. But maybe Britain is just not ready for its (former US president Barack) Obama moment. Many
Tory members appear to have swallowed the propaganda put about by right-wing newspapers about Rishi’s £500 Prada loafers, his £3,500 bespoke suit, his education at Winchester, the US green card that he and his wife, Akshata Murty, once held, her non-dom status and her estimated £700 million Infosys inheritance.
Hope acknowledged: “There were also no complaints when, as chancellor, he wore the same suit to announce the Treasury’s furlough scheme to pay companies’ employees at the beginning of the pandemic in early 2020, before the cost of living crisis.”
Rishi remarked a touch, ironically: “When I stood up and announced furlough, which helped millions of people, particularly those on low incomes, I was wearing exactly the same suit that I’m now getting criticism for.
“I’m the same person, right? When I said there is going to be a real problem with energy bills this autumn and I want to make sure that we help particularly the most vulnerable, again, I was probably wearing the same thing because I only have the same suit.
“Values are what is important. What I’m wearing is irrelevant to all of that.”