A very British Indian prime minister

Rishi Sunak should replace Boris Johnson as British prime minister

By Alper Ali Riza

It is often wrongly assumed that the political left is the natural home of liberated women, ethnics and LGBGTQ+ people. The truth, however, is that political parties on the right are as socially reformist – it was a Conservative prime minister, David Cameron, who passed legislation that declared same sex marriage lawful – and as capable of attracting women and minorities to their ranks.

The Labour Party on the left in Britain has yet to vote in a woman leader despite the evident suitability of Angela Rayner, and unlike the Conservatives they have few African or Asian Britons ready and willing to throw in their hat in any election to replace the Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer.

Boris Johnson was of Turkish origin on his father’s side; however, his appearance and style were English upper class, so he did not count as ethnic, even if according to a recent podcast he was bullied for being Turkish at prep school. His exit from power is a good time to praise his government for being the most ethnically and gender diverse ever and the candidates to succeed him the most cosmopolitan in British history.

His finance minister Nadeem Zahawi is a British Iraqi Kurd; the previous finance minister Rishi Sunak, who is favourite to succeed him, is British Indian; Sajid Javid, the finance minister before Sunak and minister of health before he wielded the knife that moved the Westminster herd to remove Johnson, is British Pakistani.

Javid did not have sufficient parliamentary support to run, and Zahawi was eliminated in the first round. but other ethnics survived with sizeable parliamentary support. The attorney general Suella Braverman QC survived the first round but was eliminated in the second. She is of British Indian origin and a member of the Bar of England and Wales, although I must confess I never heard of her before she was catapulted to be the government’s chief law officer.

The attorney general is not a member of the cabinet but an independent legal adviser to the government who attends cabinet as and when required. He or she is usually a QC of many years experience and is there to provide independent legal advice irrespective of its effect on policy. She was not a QC and was made one on becoming attorney general, which is the wrong way round.

I don’t know what possessed Johnson to appoint someone as green behind the ears as Braverman to be attorney general; she was clearly unsuitable as she did not have the necessary experience and independence to command respect in government circles, particularly among foreign office and military personnel. She has alt right views about international and human rights law under the cloak of being anti woke, but such views are unhelpful to diplomats and commanders in the field.

Olukemi Olufunto Badenoch (Kemi Badenoch) is British of Nigerian origin and is still in with a chance. Again I never heard of her before she became a candidate for leader and although she has been pressed to drop out, she has strong support in some sections of the parliamentary party. The African Briton I thought would run is Kwaisi Kwarteng, minister of business and energy. A Cambridge and Harvard trained historian and author, he has no racial or colonial hangups and looks and sounds like Britain’s first black prime minister – eat your heart out Barack Obama. Alas he is not running. Worse still, he is supporting Liz Truss who lacks gravitas and has no grasp of big power realpolitik.

The only white man left in the race as I write is Tom Tugendhat who is of Austrian Jewish origin, now a Catholic. He is ex-military ex-Afghanistan but has no government experience and is a bit of a Cold War bore.

The rest of the candidates are English women: Liz Truss – Trust in Truss – and Penny Mordaunt – pm4pm – both lightweight and manifestly not Mrs Thatcher. The Russians don’t rate Liz Truss at all – more tinpot than Iron Lady they thought when she went to Moscow to discuss Ukraine. They hurt her ego by laughing at her lack of understanding of Russian security concerns, which has made her very hawkish on Ukraine. Total defeat of Russia she said recently, which is pie in the sky even for Ukraine’s president Zeleneskiy.

Penny Mordaunt I had kind of heard of but she faded into the Westminster ether until she resurfaced to stop the Rishi Sunak bandwagon. Lord Frost of Brexit expressed grave reservations about Penny Mordaunt – she is prone to go walkabout he claimed in an article last week. But he failed to express grave reservations about Boris Johnson who seemingly signed an international protocol on Northern Ireland intending to dishonour it, so I would take his reservations with a pinch of salt.

The man to succeed Johnson is Rishi Sunak who has the good looks of India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru and the brains to match. Like Nehru, Sunak has a tryst with destiny to become Britain’s first prime minister of Indian origin. Unless the members of the Conservative party go native it will be Rishi Sunak who will kiss hands with the Queen in September, and it will please HM no end.

Apparently Boris Johnson said that he does not mind who is elected provided it is not Rishi Sunak which is not as nasty as it sounds if you consider that Johnson also said the other day that he did not wish to support any candidate lest he damages their prospects.

Alper Ali Riza is a queen’s counsel in the UK and a retired part time judge