The impact of a more diverse Government in recent years has been more damaging for ethnic minority communities than positive.
The last year has been inspirational for the ethnic minority communities of the UK as 30% of Liz Truss’ cabinet consisted of MPs from ethnic minority backgrounds, compared to the national estimate of 13.7%. Following this record-breaking statistic, Rishi Sunak became the first Asian Prime Minister.
Children of today from BAME (Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic) backgrounds will be the first generation to have leading politicians in the UK to aspire to. This is fantastic as these politicians have made the government feel more representative of the people of the country.
But attempting to tackle problems surrounding racism and diversity isn’t a priority within the Conservative party. They believe that everyone in the UK already has equal opportunity. This results in these politicians not feeling it’s necessary to edit policies to support ethnic minorities.
The existence of BAME Tory politicians may tell us we have equality of opportunity; however, this is dangerous as it means working-class ethnic minorities could be forgotten about. The youth don’t receive the funding to provide them with the resources necessary to keep them safe.
It would also suggest we don’t need to reform our education system from the Eurocentric curriculum which is currently in place, as BAME Tories are examples of ethnic minorities who are high achievers within the education system.
The statistics about Truss’ cabinet from afar would suggest that the UK is making great progress and ethnic minorities are therefore well represented. I do not believe this to be the case.
Liz Truss’ cabinet gives a false sense of reality. The BAME cabinet ministers, Suella Braverman, Kwasi Kwarteng, James Cleverly, Nadhim Zahawi, Alok Sharma all attended fee paying schools. This allowed them to flourish, go to top universities and secure highly paid professional jobs.
According to an ISC census 25.5% of privately educated students are from ethnic minorities. This means all these politicians effectively represent around 1.2% of the ethnic minority (2021 census data unreleased). They are in a league of their own. They don’t understand the everyday experience of working people due to their upbringing and wealth.
An ethnic minority politician who believes people deserve equal opportunity at various stages in life, rather than opportunities derived from equity at birth, can make trickle-down diversity possible.
People from ethnic minorities are disadvantaged from the moment they are born through the inequalities within maternity care. Statistics suggest in Britain, black and Asian babies have a 43% and 60% higher rate of mortality respectively than white babies. This highlights how many issues haven’t been dealt with despite this increasingly diverse Tory government.
Zarah Sultana is an excellent example of a politician who can help trickle-down diversity happen. She has been openly critical of Nadhim Zahawi, a cabinet minister who earned an extra £1.3 million from his second job with an oil company while telling LBC: “A windfall tax on oil and gas companies that are already struggling in the North Sea is never going to cut it.”
Sultana also criticised Priti Patel for accepting a £100,000 donation from a leading oil trader. Sultana exposed how these politicians are only willing to support multi billionaire businesses who they profit from rather than supporting the common people.
The Rwanda policy has been a huge talking point. It is extremely telling that, regarding the Rwanda policy, Sunak said: “I think it’s entirely reasonable that at the same time as we welcome the best and the brightest, which is what we are now doing and what I championed in government…a set of reforms to make sure this was the best place in the world for the most talented brightest innovators, researchers to come here, we get a control on our borders, people are seeing on their screens that boats are arriving.”
This reflects where Sunak’s interests and values lie as he appears completely uninterested in supporting the working ethnic minorities who desperately need his support and representation. He is only interested in boosting the elite and leaving the rest behind. Under Sunak, trickle down diversity is not possible.
Sunak isn’t the only example of Tory politicians from ethnic minority backgrounds who seem disinterested in advocating better representation. Kwasi Kwarteng in 2019 said: “To say [Boris Johnson] is racist is scurrilous, offensive and completely wrong.” This was in response to accusations of Boris Johnson being racist as he described black people as “piccaninnies” with “watermelon smiles”. Kwarteng also described the taking of the knee as: “gesture politics”.
Kwarteng also displayed his lack of thought for struggling Brits as he introduced the 45p tax cut. This meant that those earning over £150,000 would only have to pay 40% tax rather than 45%. This massively favours the wealthy and, during a cost of living crisis, is truly shocking as people are struggling to put food on the table, many being ethnic minorities, whilst the wealthy almost had their taxes cut.
The Runnymede Trust charity published an analysis showing that black and ethnic minorities are twice as likely to experience deep poverty with the Bengali community being the most affected. Ethnic minorities make up 26% of the UK population in deep poverty. This is quite shocking as they only make up 16% of the overall population. It is not a massive jump to say they would have suffered disproportionately had the 45p tax cut not been reversed.
Although these Tory politicians will inspire a small proportion of the current BAME communities and the next generation, a much larger proportion will feel a strong sense of anger and betrayal. These emotions are fuelled not only by the lack of action in the fight for equality, but also by the decisions made, hindering many as they introduce selfish policies which increase relative and absolute poverty for the underrepresented ethnic minority.
