Sunak, Disraeli and why pride in UK diversity isn’t enough

A lot has changed in the 144 years that separate the exit of the UK’s first ethnic minority prime minister — Benjamin Disraeli — from the near-certain forced retirement of its second, Rishi Sunak. The country’s geopolitical reach is a lot smaller: its electoral franchise is much larger. But what hasn’t changed is that successful minority politicians still have to adopt a certain tone when talking about race and diversity. And while Sunak has diverged from what history tells us prime ministers need to do to be successful, running far from the ground his party fought on in the last election, he has stuck to the Disraelian playbook on diversity.

Disraeli reassured Britons that, while, yes, his ethnic origins were different from their own, he was, as he put it to Queen Victoria, “the blank page between the Old Testament and the New”. When he exerted himself on behalf of other Jews, for example by supporting the right of Lionel de Rothschild to take his seat in Parliament, he took care to base his argument in appeals to the country’s white, Christian majority.

When Sunak talks about his own ethnic background, he too combines it with reassurance. Whenever he speaks about his pride in being the first British Asian prime minister, or his joy at celebrating Diwali in Downing Street, he is careful to add that a still greater achievement than his own is that of the UK as a whole, because we are unbothered and unflustered by his presence at the top of British politics. When Sunak spoke out in support of Black Lives Matter, he was careful to pair his support for the protesters’ aims with talking about how far the UK has come.

There’s a lot of genuine truth in the reassurance Sunak offers. He is right to say that the UK’s multicultural model is as an international example of best practice. It may have downsides, but the British approach to diversity and integration stands out, along with a handful of other countries like Canada and Portugal, as the best way to manage complex trade-offs and to run diverse societies. Sunak is right, too, to say that the UK today is one of the best societies for ethnic minorities to live and to work in.

But there is a more complex truth, as well. Yes, for most people, Sunak’s ethnicity is a cause of real pride or indifference. But not for everyone: for some, Sunak’s ethnicity is a reason why they are not backing him. Although Andrew Parker, the Reform activist who called Sunak “a fucking P*ki”, may cost his party votes overall, for some of the voters who have abandoned the Tories for Reform, Parker is speaking their language.

Here, too, there are parallels with Disraeli, whose success in climbing to the top of British society was accompanied by antisemitic depictions and whose foreign policy saw him attacked as the “traitorous Jew,” the “haughty Jew” and the “abominable Jew” in the popular press. Back then, it was not considered politically shocking that this should happen. Now, it is.

But the UK’s indifference to Sunak’s ethnicity is not an unalloyed good, because pride often slides into complacency and neglect. Britons should be proud of an approach to race and ethnicity that means we are one of the small club of countries to have elected minority leaders. We have even, albeit briefly, had ethnic minority leaders across the whole of Great Britain at the same time. Almost all the contenders vying to replace Rishi Sunak will be from one minority group or another, assuming, that is, that they keep their own seats. But we should guard our model fiercely against people who want to dismantle it, who can be found in the ranks of both of the UK’s political parties.

Because another lesson from Disraeli’s time is that things don’t always get better. The condition of Jews in Britain and Europe may have only improved over most of his life but in his final years, and immediately after his death, things deteriorated badly in much of the continent and indeed in the UK. If you had asked someone in 1916 to guess when the country would have its second Jewish prime minister, they probably would have assumed that at some point, Herbert Samuel, the young home secretary, might end up in Downing Street. Instead, his party collapsed and while he did become the first practising Jew to lead a UK political party, he never took them higher than third place.

Sunak is right to say that the story of race relations in the UK is not over — there is a lot that has been done and a lot still to do. In the short term he looks to be the first of many diverse leaders, not the last in a century and half. But that will only remain true if Brits treat their diversity model as an achievement to be cherished and protected, not something to skate over.

stephen.bush@ft.com