The challenge before Rishi Sunak, Britain’s first Indian-origin Prime Minister, is to stabilise the economy, reassure the financial markets and plug the huge hole in public finances, without hurting the middle class and the working class
BY ANDREW WHITEHEAD
You would have to be stone-hearted not to relish the symbolism of Rishi Sunak’s rise to the top job in British politics. For the first time, a nation which was once the foremost imperial power is headed by a man whose family sprang from the colonised and not the colonisers. It doesn’t wash out the ugliness of imperialism, and the stain of perceived racial and civilisational superiority which was intrinsic to it, but it does suggest that Empire’s shadow is fading.
British politics has been a circus show for quite a while now and for the past few months it has felt like the clowns have been in charge. But the attention of the world—and the eyes of India and its diaspora in particular—has been drawn to 10 Downing Street by the advent of the first non-white Prime Minister. Ireland has had a man of Indian origin at the helm; Portugal has at the moment; the US Vice-President’s mother was born in Chennai (when the city was still known as Madras). But this is the first time any G7 nation has had a ‘desi’ head of government.
Rishi Sunak did not become Prime Minister because he is a practising Hindu or because his grandparents hailed from Punjab. It was neither an asset nor an obstacle. In his ‘Ready for Rishi’ campaign video when he first stood for the party leadership back in July, he made a lot of his family’s back story. But on the day he finally made it into the PM’s office, there was not a mention of who he was or where he came from.
Historians and documentary film-makers will in the decades ahead trawl through Sunak’s remarks as he entered Downing Street for a quote or a phrase which captures the global significance of a man of colour leading the country. They will be disappointed. There’s not even a nod towards his heritage, or what it says about the maturity of Britain’s democracy, or how this could encourage others from minority communities to enter politics.
On Sunak’s first appearance in the House of Commons as Prime Minister, the leader of the opposition Labour Party, Keir Starmer, offered congratulations and described the appointment of the first British Asian as Prime Minister as a “significant moment in our national story”. Starmer added that “Britain is a place where people of all races and beliefs can fulfil their dreams”. Sitting opposite him, Sunak acknowledged the comments but did not address them directly.
That’s in part because Sunak doesn’t do the personal. He wants to keep attention away from his family, and particularly his two young daughters, Krishna and Anoushka. And he’s been stung by the criticism of his wife, Akshata Murthy, for enjoying tax privileges—now forgone—which while entirely legal didn’t feel appropriate for the spouse of a top politician.
Sunak and his wife are famously well-off—richer than King Charles, and wealthier than any other MP. In the United States, that might be seen as a political advantage. Not so in the UK. The British public doesn’t seem to mind posh politicians, but they are not quite so sure about the super wealthy. Sunak doesn’t flaunt his money— but he does have several very smart homes and he dresses well and expensively. In the months ahead, as he has to introduce some unpopular economic medicine, a lot will be made of his money. He will be accused of adding to the hardships of ordinary people with spending cuts—and perhaps tax rises—from which his family won’t feel any pain.
The new Prime Minister’s primary goal is to stabilise the economy, reassure the financial markets and plug the huge hole in Britain’s public finances. The Conservatives were once seen as the party of sound money. Liz Truss’s disastrous seven weeks as Prime Minister have thrown away that huge asset. She introduced the biggest tax cuts in half a century at a time when recession was looming and the government had still to make good on the billions spent in easing the impact of the Covid pandemic. And she manoeuvred to do this without the customary fiscal stress test provided by the Office of Budget Responsibility. She put libertarian, free market ideology over fiscal common sense.
The markets took fright—which meant that Conservative MPs often be an ordeal for the PM as for half-an-hour or more he has to deal with questions from MPs on any topic. Conservative MPs were cheered by their new leader’s performance, so much so that at the close they were calling out: “More, more!”
At 42, he’s Britain’s youngest Prime Minister for more than 200 years. Narendra Modi is 30 years his senior; Joe Biden had served for seven years in the US Senate by the time Sunak was born. It feels that this could be a moment of generational change in British politics, much as when Tony Blair came to power 25 years ago.
If economic policy is Sunak’s strength, then foreign policy is where he has least experience. And he will have to get up to speed very quickly with all the implications of the war in Ukraine, an increasingly confident and assertive China, and the fraught task of rebuilding close ties with the major EU nations which have been so badly bruised by Brexit.
As for relations with India, Britain still wants, and needs, a Free Trade Agreement. The target of getting a deal by Diwali has been missed, but London will want to get those talks back on track. And Sunak may be willing to make the concessions on the visa regime for Indian skilled workers and students which could help get those talks over the finishing line.
On a personal note, I started reporting on British politics in 1988. In the general election the previous year, four black and Asian MPs had been elected, all representing the Labour Party. They were the first non-white MPs for more than half a century. The Conservative benches in Parliament were at that time exclusively white. A nonwhite Conservative leader was unimaginable.
Since then the Conservative party has taken active steps to recruit among ethnic minorities and to select non-white candidates for winnable seats. That’s paid a political dividend.
There are now 65 non-white MPs, that’s one in ten of the total, and of these 22 are Conservatives. Quite a few, including Sunak, represent constituencies which are overwhelmingly white. The notion that you put forward an Asian candidate only in seats which have a large Asian electorate is now emphatically out of date.
Among MPs of Indian origin, there are now as many Conservatives as Labour Parliamentarians. That reflects the changing social profile of Britain’s Indian community, which numbers almost two million people and constitutes the country’s biggest ethnic minority. Many Britons of Indian origin have been successful in business, retail, the academic world, law and medicine, and over the decades their loyalties have, very broadly, shifted somewhat from Labour, which used to be seen as the anti-racist party, to the Conservatives.
It’s striking that in Sunak’s new cabinet, the Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, is also of Indian heritage (her father’s family is from Goa while her mother is from the Tamil community in Mauritius) and the Foreign Secretary, James Cleverly, is of African heritage (his mother is from Sierra Leone). Of the top four jobs in British politics, the post of Chancellor of the Exchequer is the only one held by a white politician (Jeremy Hunt). No one is suggesting that Sunak has appointed people because of their ethnic identity.
It’s simply a coincidence. But it’s a coincidence that tells you something about how inclusive the British Conservative Party has become, much more so than any other right-of-centre party in a major western democracy.
And while some nations are turning towards majoritarian politics, where the role of minorities in public life is squeezed and their patriotism questioned, Britain is heading in the opposite direction.
(The writer was both India correspondent based in Delhi and a political correspondent based in Westminster in his 35-year career with BBC News.)
