Why You Should NOT Celebrate The Tory Leadership's "Diversity"...

We have all heard the news that conservative prime minister, Boris Johnson, is resigning. ??

Which means the conservative party are looking for a new prime minister to take Johnson’s place.?

??The current Tory leadership race is making history with the highest number of ethnically diverse members than ever before.

There is, in fact, more ethnic minority Britons than white Britons within the race.?

So, on the outside, the leadership is completely diverse, and many have called for celebration…

However, for diversity and representation to see successful progress, it has to go deeper than the surface, which in this case is not apparent.?

??Before we get into it...

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Anyway... Let's get back to it

Let’s take a look at some of the ethnically diverse Tory leadership members so far and their back-stories:?

??Rishi Sunak was born in England and has Indian and African heritage.

??His Grandmother was an economic migrant from Kenya and was from a wealthy background herself.

??His parents earned enough money, through their jobs of general practitioner and pharmacist, to send Sunak to Winchester, which currently costs ￡40,000 a year.?

??Sunak’s wife, Akshata Murty, came from an extremely wealthy background, with her father being a billionaire businessman.

??It has also been reported that she is wealthier than the Queen and Murty does not pay tax.

??Suella Braverman’s East African parents emigrated to England to gain a better life.

??Braverman was provided a scholarship to private school, went to Cambridge University, and was accepted into the EU Erasmus programme.

??Braverman stands with many traditional views that create a bigger barrier to privilege, such as transgender rights.?

??Braverman does not agree that schools must accommodate requests to support transgender students and argues that there is a very distinct line between male and female.

??Sajid Javid’s father fled his home to move to the UK to gain a better life.

??His father worked hard doing many low paid jobs to earn enough.

??Javid had a rough up-bringing in terms of finance and immigration hardships.

??Javid spent his childhood living in poverty in a two-bed flat above a shop in Bristol with four brothers.?

??Kemi Badenoch was born in Wimbledon, London to her father, a general practitioner, and her mother, a physiology professor.

??Badenoch studied Computer systems engineering at the University of Sussex and plans to use this as her focus.

??Badenoch spent a few years living in Nigeria and the United States.

??Her and her family returned to the UK when she was 16 due to the deteriorating political and economic situation in Nigeria, which had a big impact on Badenoch’s family.?

??Badenoch condemns the purpose led approach in businesses and argues that we must go back to focus on profit.

??Similar to Braverman, Badenoch also does not agree with many non-traditional views such as transgender rights, specifically she does not agree with transgender friendly toilets.?

??Nadihm Zahawi is Iraqi-born and British.

??Zahawi and his family fled to the UK when he was 11 years old while under threat of persecution from Saddam Hussein’s regime.

??His father is a businessman and a director of Balshore investments.

??Zahawi grew up in Sussex and went to Kings college London and University College London to study chemical engineering.?

??His family were not faced with financial hardships before fleeing Iraq.

??His Grandfather was the governor for the Central Bank of Iraq and was featured on banknotes.?

??So…. What does this mean?

??All of these members share stories of immigration, hardships that caused them to return to the UK to gain a better life.

To put it bluntly, have these members of parliament forgotten all about the hardships they and their family faced????

??All of these members support Priti Patel’s plan to send migrants and asylum seekers to Rwanda, rather than providing them a good life in the UK.?

As writer,?Yassmin Abdel Magied, excellently puts it into perspective…?

‘Unless members of minority communities are using their positions of power to alleviate oppressions of other marginalised groups, representation is not a genuine process’?

In other words, Sunak, Braverman, Javid, and other members, simply are supporting a plan that goes against everything that their families and their minority communities have fought so hard for.?

What does this mean for the Tory party??

??Unfortunately, because of the ethnically diverse leadership, many Brits believe that now we live in a post-racial society. However, this is completely untrue.?

??The Tory party have simply used “a token few black and brown faces” in high power to eliminate any racist argument against themselves, but instead have used the minority of a already-minority group and reversed the purpose to increase a genuine representation for ethnic minorities.?

??For example, the rate of poverty in the UK is highest amongst ethnic minority groups, many of the conservative policies and plans least benefit those in poverty, in fact many of the policies will make their lives ten times harder. Yet, the ethnic minority members in the leadership race ignore this.?

??Similarly, People who have similar backgrounds to Sunak, Braverman, and Javid, are likely to be turned down the opportunity to gain a better life because of Patel’s plan that the members support.?

??Likewise, Stories such as Sunak’s are, unfortunately, uncommon in the UK because of the systematic racism that is so deeply hidden. Therefore, by using the minority from an already minority group doesn’t increase the representation, it only damages it further.?

Why we care about this…

Over the past few months, we have focussed largely on different areas of privilege such as:

??Education Privilege

??Citizenship Privilege

??Gender Privilege

??Socio-economic Privilege

??We have discussed what these types of privilege mean, the impacts, and what organisations can do to remove the uneven playing field and address privilege in the right way.

??Despite these members of parliament being ethnically diverse, privilege is more than just white privilege.?

??The members have proven to have educational privilege through their degree statuses and the schools that they went to.

??Many of the members do not support gender equality, specifically transgender equality, they have also never reported any struggle with understanding their gender which proves their privilege in this aspect.

??Many of the members have never faced any financial difficulty, such as Rishi Sunak who is often known due to his wealth.?

??As previously mentioned, many Brits are celebrating the ethnically diverse leadership race, however, those celebrating do not realise that there are multiple forms of privilege that are also involved in their journey to leadership.?

??Therefore, despite the face of the party seeming “diverse” and a “good reputation” for ethnic minorities, underneath the surface the reputation is far from “good” and goes against everything that ethnic minorities have fought for and still fight for today.?

??This has also been referenced as “brown-washing”, meaning that by using “brown faces” the party are able to convince ethnic minority groups to support them… you could even call it propaganda.?

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Author: Gracie Williams