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.

After Boris who proved himself to be a closet socialist, with his big state, big spend tendencies, the Tories are desperate for a true conservative leader. They would firstly favour the person who advocates for conservative fiscal policy and liberal trade policy. Then that person has to be a good communicator. On the whole they could overlook the BAME identity but of course there are racist supporters of every party.
Unfortunately none of the BAME candidates fit the bill on what the Tory party are looking for - least of all Rishi ‘Marx’.

@wheresmymojo Yes Javid had a WC background but the manner in which he made his fortune is hardly great... selling bonds and fleeing back to Europe when these bonds became junk.
He also spent 3 years supporting Boris Johnson and Brexit, 2 things he was vehemently disliked BUT sold his soul for power.

In answer to your question yes

Whether Sunak can overcome the wealth issue in the public due to stories re his wife etc I’m not sure.

I think the UK would be quite happy to vote for a BAME PM.

Rishi's biggest issue is his wealth. Can a politician with all that incredible personal spending power really understand what it's like to live on UC or have to top up your groceries with visits to the food bank?

I agree, she did and with the benefit of hindsight I can separate her good work from the bad. But the wider population certainly don’t hold her up as an icon to be proud of a d follow in the footsteps of. Look what happened to her statue, the woman was hated till the day she died and still is.

From the perspective of progress and equality her legacy is overlooked and not really talked about in terms of a woman achieving success in politics. when comparisons were made with May and Thatcher it was never intended as favourable, more as ‘we’re going to get more of the same as Thatcher’.

Electing anyone from the cabinet associated with BJ is tainted and destined for the same.

There could be a GE within months, i'd not write off Labour yet.

I think many in the UK are fed up with the Cons, Boris or no Boris plus changes of leadership rarely gets done well, the Tories have a history of getting it wrong at the 1st and 2nd attempts.

The points you mention have nothing to do with Sunak's ethnicity.
Sunak is far f60 be5ng the only non-white candidate - if YOU dislike him, whether because of his ethnicity, skin colour or anything else. just own it. ANd preferably keep racist opinions to yourself.
An advantage of having a wealthy PM is that they're less likely to be scrabbling around to find someone to pay for their wallpaper (& Johnson's taste in interior decoration sounds dire).

Johnson still gets to appoint a herd to the HofL as his last Hurrah - awaiting Lord Wallpaper of Bermuda, and fights over who wants to be Lord Bullingdon..

I came across the expression "Global Majority" the other day - an improvement on BAME.

@RenegadeMatron and others:
Why would you assume that the posters who say they would NOT vote for Rishi DID vote for Boris? Plenty of people did not vote for Boris!

Also, in a GE, most people are voting for the party whose views most align with their own, not the leader. We don’t have an option on leaders so if your values are Tory, you have little choice. Unless they are a paying member of the Tory party, nobody here actually voted Boris in as their leader.

Personally, I wouldn’t vote for any of them - because I’m not a Tory.

She only dragged the ‘sick man of Europe’ kicking and screaming into the 20th century and saved the economy from ruin. Not everyone was always going to be on board with how she did it but no one else had any better ideas so it’s to criticize. By the way it’s only in Little Englander territory where her achievements are minimized so much. With vast swathes of conservative electorate and internationally, she is considered one the best most effective British leaders of the 20th century. By the vocal minority on the left in this country would tell you night was day.

Anyway, the Tory membership would kill for a Thatcher figure right now. None of the candidates even come close though.

Given the number of BAME people elected already why would you claim this?

What evidence do you have?

Not a BAME and not a woman - older Tory party members will want a white male preferably public school educated. Women only get the role if the country is a disaster and none of the men want it.

Whoever it is needs to be able to bang heads together and kick ass - Sunak is too boyish to do that - also needs strong personality.

I think that massively downplays a successful career in banking.

I don't vote Conservative but to summarise his career as "selling bonds and fleeing back to Europe when they became junk".

He went from bus driver's son and state school to become a Board Member of Deutsche Bank International and took a pay cut from £3M a year to £80k to become an MP.

That's an impressive thing to do as someone from a working class background even as a white person let alone adding in being Pakistani and growing up at a time when calling people 'Paki' was still seen as largely acceptable.

Your post makes no sense whatsoever, OP. None of the points you raise regarding concerns about Sunak's suitability to govern are anything to do with his ethnicity. They are all to do with privilege and corruption and that doesn't necessarily have a skin colour.

Well they’re wrong, it’s not how our political system works. What they’re voting for is a politicians who endorses (or doesn’t) a particular leader and will follow their decisions.

It’s why MP’s could move to oust Boris, because they represent their constituents not the party and if they feel the leadership isn’t following their remit they can move to replace them.

A party leader is representing the stance of a party on behalf of members and one of the only mechanisms to hold leaderships to account outside of elections.

It’s a fairly important part of our system, one important enough that it shouldn’t be redefined because some people choose not to understand it.

Although I think whoever pushed the wealth of spouse angle hit a note that would work with many in public

atm iirc he’s the bookie’s favourite, not that I really go for that but looked as people kept mentioning Mordaunt in previous threads

Rishi and Javid have a higher chance than any other candidates apart from Hunt.

They're not black, they're brown, and to be blunt, more brown people hold jobs of high standing in the community in the UK, so there with be covert bias with more favour towards them than any black candidates. Because the country is also a little racist that way too.

Also it's a conservative vote, not a UK vote. The Queen likely wont permit a general election after.

So those black and brown people didn't really deserve those jobs? They got them purely because of cronyism?

If that was true then why are we even having a conversation about their suitability as PM?

I think staunch tories will vote for anyone. Idk who to vote for in the next GE. Like a lot of women, I feel politically homeless. I would also like to see Javid as PM. I might be able to vote for the party under him. Sunak otoh. Just no.

Well, right now 83% of the vote on this post is YABU. I really hope that is indicative of the mood of the country- not necessarily for Rishi in particular, but I think a non white Prime Minister would be a great step forward for our country in terms of race relations and equality.

I'm laughing at this, because the alternative is to run out of the house screaming ...

I'm actually massively heartened by the preponderance of BAME people going for the top job. I've never voted Tory in my life and never will, but take note, Labour - the Tories have had two female leaders, Labour 0, and now the Tories are in with a fighting chance of being the first mainstream political party in the UK to have a leader who isn't White British. They've already had the one and only Jewish PM this country has ever had (Disraeli), IIRC.

I also agree with a PP - not a fan of Thatcher's politics but if you'd have asked me at 10 years old what I wanted to be...I'd have said Primeminister because having a female PM made that something I (working class kid from an ex-mining family) felt was possible even given the difference in other parts of our background.

So, while I won't vote Tory, I do hope we get one of the candidates who aren't white leading the party and being PM for a while.

Javid at the moment seems the best of a bad bunch

Well if he gets voted in by the Tory MPs then he'll be PM, so Britain will have to be ready for a BAME PM??

Agree - people forget about Thatcher and the turn around of the ecomony. I think this is down to two main reasons:

a) people forgetting how bad it was in the 1970s (Britain needing an IMF loan FGS!) and taking the repaired version for granted
b) people remembering other things about Thatcher

She was tough, she was thorough, she was competent, and she expected people around her to be competent too.

Now, we could really do with someone with those attributes. Gove is probably nearest, but the Tories didn't want him last time round and he doesn't seem interested at the moment

Javid yes
Sunak no
Colour irrelevant