SPreaching about the positive aspects of Britain’s multicultural society, Minister Kemi Badenoch quoted Martin Luther King during a speech at the Conservative Party conference last fall. “We believe,” he paraphrased the American pastor and activist, “that people should be judged by their character, not the color of their skin.” The Nigerian-British minister added that he told his children ‘there is no better country for black people’.
Anyone looking for evidence of this position, which has received much criticism, need look no further than the political elite of the British Isles. Now that Wales has elected Zambian-British Vaughan Gething as Prime Minister, all British leaders are children of the British Commonwealth. In Downing Street, the boss is Rishi Sunak, the son of Indian immigrants. Scotland’s Prime Minister for a year now has been Humza Yousaf, a descendant of the Pakistani diaspora.
About the Author
Patrick van IJzendoorn is the UK and Ireland correspondent de Volkskrant. He lives in London.
And not only that. In London, Sadiq Khan, the son of Pakistani immigrants, has been mayor for eight years, and British Home Secretary James Cleverly is from Sierra Leone. Furthermore, Leo Varadkar, the Prime Minister of Ireland, is the son of an Indian father and an Irish mother. Northern Ireland is the only country to have a white leader, but there is something special: Michelle O’Neill is the first Catholic to hold this position. Twenty years ago, this composition was almost unthinkable.
Collect data on ethnicity
When Britain left the European Parliament in 2020, the meeting room suddenly became whiter. Contributing to this is that, unlike on the continent, race and ethnicity are easily discussed in the UK. The UK diligently collects ethnic data. Anyone registering with a GP, applying for a library card or buying a museum card will be asked to state their background, with categories such as ‘Asian’, ‘Black African’ to ‘White – other’.
This allows the UK government to identify specific population groups that are under-represented, and what can be done about them. A distinctive feature of British multiculturalism is that, unlike in the Netherlands, the wearing of turbans or headscarves by police has never given rise to national debate. It has been permitted for twenty years. In England not so much ethnicity but class is a barrier on the social ladder, in contrast to, for example, in the United States.
Most of Britain’s ethnic minority leaders are the ambitious children of immigrants. Sunak likes to talk about the sacrifices his parents – a doctor and a pharmacist – made to send him to boarding school. Yousaf’s father worked as an accountant and was able to send young Humza to a private school. Cleverly’s parents were also wealthy enough to offer their son a private education. As the son of a doctor, Varadkar also comes from an upper middle class.
The Welsh leader, Gething, also came from the middle class. He was born in Zambia, where his Welsh father worked as a veterinarian and married a Zambian. In an interview, the social democrat described his father as ‘a white economic migrant’. During the fight against rival Jeremy Miles, who hopes to become the first openly gay male Prime Minister, ethnicity was barely discussed, just as it played no role in Sunak’s appointment and Yousaf’s election.
Controversial contribution
During the leadership election, much attention was drawn to a two-tonne donation that Gething received from a businessman, David Neal, who, as boss of a recycling company, had apparently been convicted twice for dumping rubbish on a nature reserve. . The nationalist opposition party Plaid Cymru, which is fighting for Welsh independence, said it was ‘deeply concerned’ by the donation. Nevertheless, he won the race with a small majority.
Meanwhile in London, Sunak’s term in office is slowly approaching the end, as the gap with the Labor Party led by Keir Starmer does not narrow. Behind the scenes, there is a battle over Sunak’s succession. The main candidate was the aforementioned Badenoch, the daughter of a doctor and professor who was a favorite of his supporters partly because of her reluctance to be ‘woke’. He hopes to one day become Britain’s first black Prime Minister – complete with dreadlocks.
“Falls down a lot. General tv buff. Incurable zombie fan. Subtly charming problem solver. Amateur explorer.”
