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.

13 million people voted Tory at the last election and won 47 seats from Labour.

Yet no one on these threads is ever a Tory voter and did not vote for Boris. Therein lies the problem. The opinions of people on this forum must be irrelevant to the outcome of GEs and politics in this country. You are neither the Tory base, nor a red wall swing voter.

It is much like the Twitter world. You would think we live in a socialist revolution with the outcry against conservatism and the hatred of anything this is not left of centre. Yet the voting public think different. Conclusion has to be that these forums and debates are not representative of what is actually going on in the country.

In her case, you’d like to think being sacked as Foreign Secretary for having an off the books and unsanctioned meeting with a foreign government would prevent someone holding high office again… but her elevation to Home Secretary proves otherwise.

I voted for Boris Johnson and Tony Blair so shoot me now.

Why are some people so desperate to make out the UK is extremely racist

Because it voted Brexit? Which was intrinsically about xenophobia.

13 m people may have voted Tory, but 18m didn’t. And yet we have a government that doesn’t represent the majority.

I don't see any reason why the Tories wouldn't vote for an Asian or black leader. Tbh, I imagine a lot of older Tory ladies especially will be quite gushy over Sunak, Javid and Zahawi who are all reasonably attractive and a bit 'you go girl' for all the women candidates including Badenoch, Braverman and Patel.

Now if you'd asked are Labour ready I'd be very unsure. They certainly don't want the Tories to have an ethnic minority leader, at least not before they do which will be never given the way the party is. It makes the Tories look more progressive - already 2 women PMs - and they won't like it. Hence why so many Labour activists and supporters are raising the question all the time to try to plant seeds of doubt in people's minds. I've seen some shocking racism on twitter in the last few days from people who call themselves left wing from big accounts like Maugham to smaller ones, FBPE and the like, using horrifying racist expressions that I can't even repeat.

I would never vote for him based on the fact he served in Johnson’s cabinet. I believe none of the cabinet nor any of the 2019 super Boris fan intake should be anywhere number 10. They jumped like rats from a sinking ship but it was too late. They were enablers and traitors to the U.K.

I actually think it’s disingenuous to claim people won’t vote for him due to race and it’s an attempt to muddy the waters. It’s his actions that are the issue.

If I was forced to vote for any member of Johnson’s cabinet, it would be Javid. He seems more genuine and principled. Yes he’s ambitious but has quit cabinet twice as he’s his own man. Rishi is a PR driven fraud. Remember that photo of him filling up ‘his’ car with petrol and not knowing how to use a card machine in the petrol station?

There were plenty of other reasons why people voted leave. I voted remain but come on, can we stop pretending that everyone who voted leave was doing it because they're racist?

Sunak: Received a fine for party gate. Posed with a Sainsbury's staff member car to fill up because he's that out of touch. Introduced big tax rises. Dodgy tax set ups for his wife.

Javid: Claims Ayn Rand has his political heroine which should tell you everything you need to know. Oversaw dodgy tax avoidance schemes when working at Deutsche Bank.

Zahawi: Currently under investigation by HMRC for his tax arrangements.

Braverman: Genuinely insane. Completely incompetent as Attorney General.

Patel: (is she running? I haven't seen) Genuinely evil. Rwanda FFS.

It's not racism. They are all either corrupt, incompetent, or in Patel's case, just evil.

@sst1234
If 13 million voted Tory in 2019, that means 18 million did not vote Tory.

This is based on a 65% turnout of approx 48 million registered voters.

Oh yes, if we did get a BAME PM, it will be a sad day for progressives. But I’m sure the irony is lost on them.

Rishi has a lot of things that make him unpalatable.

His skin colour is not one of them.

Strange then that it was Labour who were found to be racist by the EHRC.

13 million people voted Tory at the last election and won 47 seats from Labour

the tories won with 43.6% of votes leaving 56.4% who didn’t vote for them. The turnout overall was 67.3% of those eligible. You’re more likely to come across someone who doesn’t support Boris/tories than someone who does based on those figures (which have moved dramatically over the last few years).

It’s a good result but it does leave a large proportion that isn’t insignificant.

Right, and?

The GE turnout has been at this similar level since 1997. People who don’t don’t have their opinion counted, no matter how vocal they are. W We only go by what those voting think and most think very differently to the ‘I would never vote Tory’ crowd on his forum.

Small point: while Disraeli was born Jewish he converted to Anglicanism aged 12. Jews could not sit in Parliament until 1858 (Disraeli was elected in 1837).

People don’t like “angry” MP’s. Too emotive and off putting.

That’s why Boris was successful. Appeared to take everything in his stride regardless of what was thrown at him.

But it doesn’t matter what they think. They either don’t vote in GEs or are not Tory party members. At the last election, you needed to be in the former group and right now you need to be in the latter to decide the PM.

I think Britain is easily easy for a BAME prime minister. I don’t think it will be Rishi, but nothing to do with his colour, I think his immense privilege will be the barrier.

The likes of Hunt are far worse. I'd argue that Hunt shouldn't be allowed to stand, he fortunately failed last time anyway which should be an excuse to bar him. But all the 'progressive' left/anti-Tories are interested in is attacking anyone with brown and black skin. Not with facts and proper political criticism either - with the emotive misogynistic smears of 'evil' and 'insane' while trying to project their own feelings onto Tory voters. I'm very anti-Tory myself but come on

I have no objection to his personal wealth or his ethnicity and race. I have a huge objection to his lack of integrity - propping up BoJo, having a get-out-of-jail-free card in the form of a US green card, wasting millions on PPE contracts to dodgy providers, and failing to get his wife to pay tax. I know what she did with her tax was legal, but it wasn’t ethical, and showed a huge lack of integrity. This is a man who doesn’t see his future in the UK. His family are not paying tax, and he clearly hadn’t shut the door on relocating to the USA at some stage. I want a leader who is invested in the UK, not someone temporarily doing a job here.

Watch him. If he wins the leadership he will walk the general election.

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

It is.

Not sure why people struggle to see past Rishi’s popularity gain during the pandemic. Any idiot can run the printing presses 24/7 to pay for a stupid lockdown policy. That’s what he did. The chicken are coming home to roost now, aka the coat of living crisis.

Also he only got the job in the first place because Javid resigned from the Chancellor post just before the pandemic in protest at meddling by Dominic Cummings. He only got the job because his leadership rival stepped aside. Right place, time time.

So really, let’s look beyond the BAME thing. Sunak is not fit for purpose because he was a crap chancellor.

But it doesn’t matter what they think. They either don’t vote in GEs or are not Tory party members. At the last election, you needed to be in the former group and right now you need to be in the latter to decide the PM.

I was more answering the incredulity that a poster could possibly come across so many people who didn’t support the tories in 2019 tbf. The numbers suggest that you’re far more likely to come across an eligible voter who didn’t than someone who did.

Disraeli was ethnically Jewish and noticeably so. He had converted to Christianity in religious terms (which since you basically had to to become an MP until 1858 was probably part of the reason he got to the office he did).

Jewish origin is a minority ethnic group, even though there are lots of Jews who would pass as white.

I think as a country we would elect another prime minister from a minority ethnic origin and it will be interesting to see if we get someone other than a straight white male as an option.