46 Britain The EconomistJanuary 30th 2021
B
oris johnsonis such a vivid embodiment of white privilege
that it is easy to forget how diverse his cabinet is. In 2005 the
Conservatives had only two minority mps. Today two of the four
great offices of state, the Treasury and the Home Office, are run by
Asian-Britons, and diversity is so entrenched that black and mi-
nority ethnic (bame) Tories are replacing other bameTories in se-
nior positions: Rishi Sunak, the son of Kenyan Asian immigrants,
succeeded Sajid Javid, the son of Pakistani immigrants, at the Trea-
sury, while Kwasi Kwarteng, the son of Ghanaian immigrants, suc-
ceeded the Indian-born Alok Sharma as secretary of state for busi-
ness (Mr Sharma remains in the cabinet as president of the
forthcoming unClimate Change Conference).
There are plenty of other talented ethnic-minority mps rising
up the ranks—notably Kemi Badenoch, Claire Coutinho and Bim
Afolami—while Mr Javid is tipped for a return to high office. The
head of Mr Johnson’s Policy Unit, Munira Mirza, is also the daugh-
ter of Pakistani immigrants. The party which has two female prime
ministers to Labour’s zero is on course to produce the first bame
prime minister. Mr Sunak leads the race.
In this, the Tories have done better than the rest of the estab-
lishment. The civil service has not yet been run by a member of an
ethnic minority, or indeed a woman. The armed forces have not
produced a bamechief of defence staff. Just 3.3% of ftse100 chairs,
ceos and cfos are from ethnic-minority backgrounds. (“Corporate
Britain treated ‘diversity’ as an excuse to give posh women jobs,”
says a prominent ethnic-minority Tory.) Salma Shah, Mr Javid’s
former special adviser, says that the two of them were often the
only people of colour in meetings.
Two figures deserve much of the credit for the Tories’ transfor-
mation. David Cameron’s decision to introduce an a-list of female
and ethnic-minority candidates back in 2005 allowed Conserva-
tive Central Office to force local parties to consider fast-tracked
candidates without removing their prized sovereignty. Though
Margaret Thatcher didn’t have much interest in race, she is an icon
to the current generation of ethnic-minority mps because she be-
lieved in self-reliance and breaking open closed shops.
The fact that class is still a more fundamental dividing line in
Britain than race—which, given that it’s easier to change your classthanyourrace,isno bad thing—partly explains the Tories’ success.
Several high-flyers thrived at posh public schools. Mr Kwarteng
and Mr Afolami were both at Eton, where the former was a King’s
Scholar and a habitual prizewinner and the latter president of Pop,
an elite society, and captain of athletics. Mr Sunak was head boy of
Winchester. Other high-flyers are examples of the great Conserva-
tive tradition of self-help. Ms Patel was the daughter of shopkeep-
ers; Ms Badenoch, who grew up in Nigeria, returned to Britain at 16
and supported herself by working in McDonald’s.
The Conservatives’ new diversity underlines the growing di-
vergence between the British and the American right. The Repub-
lican Party has only a handful of prominent ethnic-minority poli-
ticians, such as Nikki Haley, Donald Trump’s ambassador to the
un, Tim Scott, a senator from South Carolina and Marco Rubio, a
senator from Florida. Several ethnic-minority Republican politi-
cians have Americanised themselves. Ms Haley has dropped her
first name, Nimrata, and converted from Sikhism to Christianity.
Britain’s bameConservatives, by contrast, tend to wear their eth-
nic heritage on their sleeves. Mr Sunak celebrated Diwali by light-
ing candles on the steps of Number 11 Downing Street.
In America right-wing politics is increasingly about a white
backlash against a rising multicultural majority. In Britain it is still
about making your own way in the world on the basis of your abil-
ities. Many of Britain’s bame mps are “dry”—on the Thatcherite
right rather than the “wet” compassionate left of the party—pro-
Brexit and enthusiastic scourges of political correctness, but they
have not renounced their bameidentities. Indeed, many of them
are Tories precisely because of their identities as striving immi-
grants. Ms Badenoch captured this optimistic spirit in her maiden
speech as an mpwhen she thanked her chosen country for giving
her a chance to live the “British dream”.
There are obvious limits to the Conservatives’ success. Matt
Singh of Number Cruncher Politics, a polling company, estimates
that the Conservatives won 24% of ethnic-minority votes in the
2019 election compared with Labour’s 62%. Tim Bale of Queen
Mary, University of London, calculates that the party’s members
are 97% white (though Labour’s members are 96% white, which is
even more of a problem for a party that depends on minority
votes). The Conservatives’ strategy of showcasing ethnic talent by
picking out high-flyers and giving them safe (mainly white) seats
rather than, like Labour, using ethnic-minority candidates to mo-
bilise ethnic-minority voters has both advantages and disadvan-
tages. The advantage is that it attracts high-flyers who could have
had successful careers in any profession. The Tories’ talent pool,
particularly among ethnic minorities, is notably deeper than La-
bour’s. The disadvantage is that some of the most prominent bame
Conservatives have little in common with ethnic-minority voters,
many of whom are still trapped in urban poverty.
The Tories’ diversification is nevertheless thoroughly benign.
It’s obviously good for a party that needs to win votes in an increas-
ingly diverse society. But it’s also good for the country. It gives the
Conservatives the confidence to engage in debate about questions
such as multiculturalism and assimilation. It forces Labour to
compete for ethnic-minority votes rather than taking them for
granted. Sometimes the most important things in politics are not
the events that set Westminster jabbering but the things that don’t
happen and then get taken for granted. The fact that Britain’s Con-
servative Party has resisted the temptation, even during a period of
populist turmoil, to become a party of white reaction is worth both
noticing and celebrating. 7Bagehot Party of colour
The world’s oldest political party has done a good job of embracing ethnic diversity