UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is unlikely to remain in 10, Downing Street beyond July 4, as the Conservative Party is expected to suffer a historic defeat.
This despite the fact that the economy has improved under the leadership of Britain’s first ethnically Indian prime minister. Conversely, his fellow Britons would likely recall his fair-haired and blue-eyed predecessors with greater fondness, even though they managed the economy and other facets of everyday British life differently.
Will Britain ever be humble enough to consider how they treated Rishi Sunak and the implications of that? Sunak could have easily gone to California following the implosions of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, as he was being ridiculed for doing after July 4.
However, he decided to try and save his party and its government. At the age of 42, he had the opportunity to return to the banking industry and increase the millions he had in his bank account. Rather, he accepted a significant task.
Rishi Sunak believed erroneously that because he was born and obtained a British passport, the majority of Britons also saw him as such and would provide him a fair trial.
However, the manner he has been covered by the mainstream and social media serves as further evidence that, despite their increased caution when expressing it, 82% of the people in Britain’s “multi-cultural” rainbow nation remain White, and they still view non-Whites as outsiders. In politics, rainbow-wallas are acceptable as adjutants but not as major players. Still.
It is said that British voters vote on matters pertaining to bread and butter rather than ethnicity. However, Sunak’s development of the UK economy has left them unchanged. It appears that the majority white voters in the area (83%), who are frustrated with the shortcomings of his blonde predecessors, are projecting their resentment onto a fitting Indian whipping boy. Class and ideology continue to divide White people, even as they unconsciously come together when it comes to Sunak, an Indian ethnicity. which they could regret later.
Black people of African and Caribbean descent make up slightly more than 4% of the ethnically Black population in the UK; those of Asian descent make up more than twice that amount, at 9.2%.
Politicians from Black backgrounds, even in the UK, are better shielded from racist prejudices than South Asians due to the weaponization of Black history in the US and its influence throughout Europe.
Therefore, Kemi Badenoch, a Nigerian, may be harder to remove from office than Sunak, a “Indian,” if she were to become the head of the Conservative Party.
White British constituencies presently make up less than two-thirds of the population in 140 out of 632 (not counting Northern Ireland). However, a recent Ipsos survey found that, of that expanding non-white population, 68% of ethnic minority voters said they would vote Labour in Sunak’s first eight months as prime minister, while only 16% said they would vote Conservative. Those numbers were 61% to 14% before to his appointment as prime minister. What might those changes in the percentages of minorities mean?
Despite the fact that it and the Conservatives have alternated in power for 16 and 14 years in the last 30 years, respectively, Labour has historically been favored by people who belong to ethnic minorities.
But a relatively recent demographic that appears to transcend the racial component of the “BAME” (Black, Asian, Minority Ethnic) group is “Muslim,” according to pollsters’ calculations. Could even more Muslim minority voters have shifted to Labour as a result of a “Hindu” Conservative prime minister?
According to a recent poll, Rishi Sunak has the support of more British-Indian Londoners (47%), who are either extremely or moderately satisfied, which might help the Conservatives win a few seats.
It also shown how foreign events, such as wars and ethnic conflicts, do affect British politics: Sixty percent of Indian and forty-two percent of Pakistani Londoners indicated their vote will be determined by the parties’ stances on Kashmir. There’s little doubt that the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip will contribute to the unification of Muslim votes.
The Muslim Vote is a useful website in the UK that promotes itself as “a dynamic coalition of organizations and individuals” and asserts that “we are a powerful, united force of 4 million acting in unison,” notwithstanding the demise of the Islamic Party of Britain (1989–2006). We are targeting seats where the Muslim vote has the potential to impact the result. We intend to stay for a while. We will establish the groundwork for our community’s political future in 2024.”
For Indians, this tactic will sound quite familiar. Despite claiming to be “not a political party,” The Muslim Vote assists members of the community in advancing their shared goals and even supports potential candidacies as independents in the event that local chapters of established political parties do not appear to support their particular agenda. It is easy to assume that the end game is to create a vote-bank based on religion that will eventually have enough members to set the agenda.
The website includes a list of all Members of Parliament (MPs) from “Muslim-dense seats,” or seats where the percentage of Muslim voters is over 10%. A column on the list indicates the MPs’ votes cast in favor of, against, or abstention from the Gaza vote. Where Muslims make up more than 30% of the population, it has suggested independent, Green Party, or Workers Party of Britain alternatives. It declares plainly, “The Muslim vote matters and the UK’s political class needs to take it seriously.”
The majority of seats in the West Midlands, Yorkshire, the Humber, and inner cities of London are determined by the percentage of Muslims (76%) living in these regions.
Furthermore, since any resistance can be “called out” as Islamophobia on the basis of racial disparities, the anger that Western nations feel towards racism may also be used to forward this objective. The eight-decade taboo on anti-Semitism has also been lifted as a result of the Gaza conflict, which fits in well with the Labour Party’s own tendencies.
The Labour Party was shocked to learn that they had lost a sizable portion of Muslim votes in its inner city strongholds due to the Gaza problem, as it was perceived as not being pro-Palestinian, in the most recent council and mayoral elections.
Why Gaza was important in the UK’s equivalent of panchayat elections reveals the direction of that nation’s voting habits. It would be naive to believe that British politicians and political parties will remain unaffected by this political desensitization.
Hindu organizations there have released a “Hindu Manifesto UK 2024,” which suggests a counter-consolidation is underway. In addition to concerns over immigration, healthcare, education, and representation, demands include the protection of Hindu places of worship and dharmic principles, as well as the designation of anti-Hindu statements and behavior as hate crimes. However, the likelihood of being taken seriously is low because there are only one million Hindus in the UK, compared to four times as many Muslims.
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Rishi Sunak became the first Asian and “Hindu” prime minister in 10 Downing Street during what was arguably the most difficult period of the twenty-first century, thanks to a series of very British political upheavals.
However, Rishi Sunak is probably the last “Hindu,” if not Indian-origin, prime minister the UK will have for a very long time—though a Muslim PM eventually cannot be ruled out.
How Britons react to the growing influence of vote-bank politics, which has long been the scourge of the biggest democracy in the world, will determine a lot.
