Muslim leaders conflicted positions on the rise of People of Colour in the Conservative Party electoral campaign -

After the resignation of 59 Government officials in July 2022 , UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson finally stepped down as the Conservative Party leader¹. The UK is now in the process of deciding who will take over the position of Conservative party Leader and Prime Minister. Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak are the final two prime ministerial cadidates for Conservative party members to choose from. Votes will commence in September and the new UK Prime Minister will be announced on September 5th.

A record number of POC (people of colour) candidates have stepped forward for election, including Kemi Badenoch (MP for Saffron Walden and previous Minister of State for Levelling up Communities), Nadhim Zahawi (Chancellor of the Exchequer), Suella Braverman (Attorney General for England and Wales), and Rehman Chisti (Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for North America, Sanctions and Consular Policy). All four candidates were eliminated and/or withdrew, leaving Rishi Sunak (Previous Chancellor and MP for Richmond) as the only POC running for Prime Minister against Liz Truss (Secretary of State for Foreign Commonwealth and Development Affairs).

The public opinion is divided regarding this ethnic diversity of the candidates: some celebrate it, others think that these candidates cannot relate to some specific minorities: notably the UK’s 3% Black and 6.9% Asians ². 45-year-old Nasreen from London, for example, reported to The New Arab that “I think it’s a step forward that we had so many people of colour contesting, but in reality, none of them could represent us […] As a South Asian, from a struggling background I can’t say I trust any of the candidates to look into our needs”². Nasreen went on further to add “As once a refugee myself, I can say that none of the POC candidates would have supported me or understood what we have been through. The Tories have never even backed an enquiry into Islamophobia – they all seem to dismiss it. They are not interested in addressing problems that we (people of colour) experience daily in and out but instead pander to right-wing policies”³. Jaya Pathak Co-Executive Director of Yet Again stated “Seeing people who look like you is important. This can help inspire others to go into politics if they see someone who looks like them”⁴. She further adds “that does not mean that every brown person will be inspired by Priti Patel – I absolutely would never be and personally find her atrocious – but for some people, seeing a diverse cabinet may inspire them”⁵. However, Mohammed Safi, the Director of the Afghan Human Rights Foundation in Scotland stated that “Rishi Sunak and even Suella Braverman (who got voted out) are even worse than their white counterparts”⁶.They do not represent the ethnic minorities in Britain nor what they stand for, Safi added, “these are elites, they are rich […] Both Sunak and Braverman were supporting the policies in Rwanda. I am from a refugee background and both of them are calling for asylum seekers and refugees to be sent to Rwanda”⁷.

According to Professor Kehinde Andrews (Professor of Black Studies at Birmingham City University), the diversity of candidates, rather than being a watershed moment in British politics, is actually indicative that “diversity is often the enemy of anti-racism”⁸: despite Johnson drawing attention to his government being the most diverse in British history (including the appointment of Sunak as Chancellor), “the government has pursued the most openly racist policy agenda in living memory”⁹. Along the same line, the Conservative party has been accused of Islamophobia, Xenophobia, racism ans well as of hostility towards refugees¹⁰. Andrews argues that “if Sunak wins, he will be leading an openly racist government, hell bent on continuing its devastating agenda. But because a non-White prime minister has been such a long time coming, many of us will delude ourselves into believing change has come”¹¹.

Regarding Islamophobia, in 2018 the Muslim Council of Britain called for an independent inquiry into the problem citing nine cases of anti-Islam sentiment from individual Conservative party politicians¹² (see Euro-Islam “Islamophobia within the British Conservative Party: An Inquiry”). But the appointment of Professor Swaran Singh (University of Warwick) as the inquiry chair was met with scepticism by Muslim and anti racist activities because of Singh’s position that anti Islamophobia policies should be “junked” because it serves some modern-day claims for blasphemy law⁶. The report released in May 2021 (see Euro-Islam “Islamophobia within the British Conservative Party: The Inquiry Findings”) was critiqued by Sajjad Karim (who served as a Conservative MEP) for attempting to “whitewash deep-rooted issues out of sight”¹³ and not considering Islamophobia to be a serious systemic issue.

With the resignation of Boris Johnson, the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) released a statement calling for the reset of British Politics:

“Over the years the Muslim Council of Britain has shown how Muslims in particular, have been demonised and viewed through the prism of security distrust, and ridicule. Before becoming Prime Minister, Boris Johnson mocked Muslim women, causing an upsurge in Islamophobic attacks, and yet, the Tories chose him as leader without censure; underlining how Islamophobia is rife in the Conservative Party and politics in general”¹⁴.

The MCB further added that “we need to heal the divisions of the last few years and work to ease the difficulties faced by British people today. This also demands a new approach towards minority communities and repairs the distrust and damage caused by Boris Johnson’s tenure as Prime Minister”¹⁵.