Rishi Sunak: Is He a Scapegoat for the Tories’ Systemically Racist Agenda?

Iqra Haq, a new UK writer, created a short blog piece on the recent changes in the UK Government and delves deep into thoughts of the south asian community, on the systemic racism embedded into the roots of the UK Government. 

Some citizens of South Asian descent originally had a biased view of our prime minister. Their reactions were somewhat happy as there was finally someone of South Asian descent in a high position of power. The South Asian community felt as though it was a win - they were finally represented and acknowledged within a country that has never felt like home to many people of colour due to the systemic and cultural racism embedded into British society. Like a seed growing into a plant, racism has continued to grow, since the beginning of human civilisation when different colours of skin were established, and is now intertwined into the stems of society for generations of ethnic minorities to cope with and navigate.

Rishi Sunak “the Indian prime minister” isn’t the amazing title that ethnic minorities may have looked forward to. He won’t end the racism that has divided this country, he won’t devote his time to help close the gap between our ethnic minority school children, and the elitism bred through education by their privileged counterparts, that they have to work 10 times harder than, to get the same opportunities. He isn’t the answer to ending systemic racism and he isn’t the man that’s going to do anything for the hardworking citizens of this country.

Rishi Sunak is the epitome of the South Asian man that the Tory Government want in power to do their dirty work, without having to lift a finger while seemingly painting a picture of diversity to fall back on when they’re called into question on their blatantly racist agendas for this country.

This has been done before by the Tory Government, for example, when Priti Patel announced “her” Rwanda Asylum Plan. How could she, a woman of colour, send people from circumstances that her family themselves had originated from, to a place where they would only endure more hardship? Because she was a brown woman. It was perfect and it still is in the case of Rishi Sunak.

So what can it be based on, just because they’re people of colour, suddenly, that makes it more bearable for them to commit the same atrocities that their white counterparts also want to commit? How can we, as a country, allow this to have become significantly present in our day and age of modern society. The truth is, if a white member of the Tory Party had been the one to push such a racist agenda as the Rwanda Asylum Plan, they would no longer have a job and would be held accountable by the general population for their terrible thought process and actions. Why is the same courtesy not paid for the Tory Party’s POC counterparts who are just as bad?

The Tory Party paint this image of diversity with their POC members for show and gladly use them to ground their racist agendas, by appealing to the public with an array of skin colours speaking the words that their elitist privileged counterparts want to say publicly but cannot. It’s easier for them to create this image to ethnic minorities that they’re “acknowledged and heard” and that they’ve “finally made it” when in reality they haven’t. Really to them ethnic minorities are their cover in politics to easily put forward their racist ideals and plans with the illusion of it being a benefit for this country.

So I’ll leave you with this: there is a rare British 50p coin that I came across one day which stated, “Diversity Built Britain”. It represents in itself everything good and bad about this country. Its background is a network of interconnected triangles, otherwise known as a Geodome, to symbolise the importance of connections between communities, and the strength of these connections across the country. And while that meaning is a comforting idea, the coin also represents the pain carried by ethnic minorities since the days of the British Empire and how this country was built on colonialism, racism and slavery. It took the exploitation of diversity to create what we still witness today and what we still have to fight against. This coin was yet another example of the illusion that Rishi Sunak, alongside his Tory counterparts, has created for ethnic minorities to make them feel as though they are “included” in a racist society that they do not deserve to belong in.

While the sentiment of this coin is meaningful to all ethnic minorities, it would’ve felt real had it come from a genuine and liberal party within the society we live in today.