Britain is not ready for BAME PM

[notnever]

Rishi might just be voted by MPs but will not win general elections. Already we are reminded he is rich, has an US Greencard, cut taxes, unrelatable, wife is rich and did not pay tax, did not declare tax, etc, as if any different from Boris.

Do you think Britain is ready for BAME PM?
Yes = you are unreasonable
No = you are not being unreasonable

NB, you don't have to explain whether it makes Britain racist or not. I am personally happy he is standing for leadership, it will be his good reminder (as many of us BAME know) racism trumps social class.

Hahaha most rich people want to get richer.

This

@notnever I am also BAME. From the same community as Rishi but I think your prioritiea are not right.
Country is going through massive living cost crisis. That might not be an issue for you, as many young Asians are financially well off or in higher paying jobs.
But a country which is going through financial crisis, had 2 very hard years due to mishandling of pandemic, why you want public to vote one of the key members of thay government? Also from the government who disobeyed the rules they made public follow.
Your posts are full of unconscious bias, you are responding to posters who agree with you completely ignoring those who explain that race is not an issue for them but Rishi Sunak is not a candidate they would vote for other reasons.

There are some deeply disingenuous people on this thread.

All this, ‘I wouldn’t vote for him because X, Y, Z - nothing to do with his skin colour’. Please.

If only people had used those sorts of scruples when Boris was up for election.

But, no. The majority of people held their noses, and big, fat voted for him, anyway. His many flaws - including, but not limited to, incompetence - weren’t enough to stop the majority voting him in.

Likewise, if Boris were a woman, cheating on husband, and spawning kids, it would have been completely unacceptable.

He can do it because he’s a wealthy, privileged white man, and it gives him the sort of ‘pass’ other people simply do not get.

Rishi is in a different league when it comes to wealth. It means that none of his economic policies will actually make any impact on his personal finances. There are other ethnic minority candidates, who are not on the rich list, who I would support.

Much like Maggie Thatchers relationship with the electorate completely detracts from her achievement as the first female prime minister, so would the achievement of any poc winning a premiership with a history of supporting this government and continuing the same culture.

I hated Thatcher with the force of a thousand suns.

However I still remember walking to school with my mum saying, "a woman is in charge of the country" to her the morning after her election. If you see it, you can be it. Whatever else that odious arsehole did, she did prove to a whole generation, that women can run the country.

One of those racists who don't see colour but can't tell the difference between one brown person and another.

What are you basing this off?

plugee · Today 07:31
No way vote I'd vote for Rishi the stupid fool.
Extremely high fuel prices,
High food prices
More energy Increases

How is this Rishi's fault?

A bit of me thinks it's good he's so rich as it may make him act more independently as opposed to what will make him rich.

I agree with that actually a PM who isn’t looking to line his own pocket might be good. But would prefer a PM who is from a working class background who actually understands where the majority of UK are going through. Not sure we are ever going to get this as in the echelons of politics at high level they are generally bloody jobs for the boys

Two seperate issues

1. Sunak is as corrupt as they come (well, not as corrupt as Johnson, but he's one on his own).
2. Britain is too racist to elect a brown person.

Both are true.

Not the point of your OP, but I really dislike the term BAME. No nuance. My experience as a brown woman of Indian heritage, will be completely different to a black male of Jamaican heritage.

PPs have provided helpful links.

Why are we all suddenly using ‘BAME’ again? Haven’t seen it in a while. It’s outdated.

So my stepfather is racist (we had many explosive arguments about it when living together and I now limit contact as much as possible).

He's a life long Tory.

So obviously I asked my DM how he'll cope if the Tory leader/PM is the son of Pakistani immigrants.

Apparently he'd rather vote for a BAME Tory than Labour or Liberal.

I tried to find out what would have to happen for him not to vote Tory. I got to a trans candidate who is a drag queen as a hobby for him to not vote.

(I realise this is all highly offensive by the way. It's not how I think at all but it's the reality of how he and plenty like him think. I chose Sajid as the Pakistani son of immigrants rather than Rishi because he has less of a problem with Indians / Hindus than Pakistanis / Muslims. Don't ask me why...his thought processes are not ones I understand or care to dig too deeply into for they are grim and make me rage).

Great post

Wasn’t Rishi Sunak very popular a couple of years ago? Early pandemic. I think the majority of Tory Britain would have been willing to have him as PM then if there was the opportunity at that point but since then he’s been shown as just another self serving politician lacking integrity.

Admittedly I don’t vote Tory and I despised Johnson but none of these candidates seem remotely appealing.

The problem with Sunak is not his colour. It's the privilege his colossal wealth brings.

I wouldn’t vote for him because he’s so privileged and disgustingly rich that he has no idea how the rest of us live.

I think comments like these sort of prove the OP’s point. Boris (and a lot of tories) are also loving in completely different circumstances to most of us. None of them understand the impact that price rises are having on us. Why do we hold Sunak to higher expectations?

The answer might be uncomfortable.

Come on. He won't be voted in because he's a self serving wanker

I get the impression so many of you would like your 2nd point to be true, in fact it would annoy a lot of you if it comes to pass someone like Sunak, Javid or Zahawi wins.

The general public doesn't vote for the PM. The members of the party do. Come election time, only the people in that constituency can vote for that person as an MP. You don't vote for a prime minister. You vote for a party and an MP in the area you live. If you don't live in his constituency you can't vote for him. So the question of whether the UK is ready for a non white PM its irrelevant really. The UK doesn't get a say. The Tory party do.

I don't think Rishi's unsuitability to be PM has anything to do with the colour of his skin and everything to do with the fact he's a lying snake who has trashed the economy and supported Boris faithfully until it suited him not to. No morals, no backbone, no idea of what real life is like for millions of people.

To suggest that if he doesn't become PM its because of his skin colour disregards all the other excellent reasons why he is totally unfit to hold that office. And really, reduces him to nothing more than the colour of his skin. Isn't that racist in itself?

I’d love to see a black Prime Minister. Not a Tory one, though.

If someone put a gun to my head to vote Tory then I'd vote for Sajid Javid.

In reality I wouldn't vote for him (or Rishi) because I wouldn't vote Conservative. Nothing to do with Rishi being BAME.

I do think Labour & LDs need to re-look at what's happening with diversity in their parties.

Having a look round right wing Twitter, there seems to be a lot of support for Kemi Badenoch, and she has out herself forward as a candidate.

The only mention of her race seems to come from Labour voting types.

Shrugs

Why? Wrong type of black?

They weren't voted into these positions though were they?

Boris surrounded himself with loyalists (worked well) and a cabinet picked on their Brexit beliefs or recantations.... NOT ability.

The hate Labours Sadiq Khan gets on SM (and Diane Abbott too) plus the very real fact that Brexit was driven by racism and racists (Boris and Farage) makes me think that very sadly, the OP is probably correct

I wouldn't vote for him anyway due to the long list of misdemeanours you listed nowt to do with his ethnicity