Is the race card finally dealt on Rishi Sunak?
Aha, finally…the race card is finally in play against Rishi Sunak.
Not by everyone, mind. Just by Nigel Farage, newly installed as leader of Reform UK, the right-wing party that succeeded the Brexit Party which advocates hard Euroscepticism.
After Prime Minister Sunak ill-advisedly made an early exit from the D-day commemorations in Normandy, Mr Farage appeared on a BBC TV debate of minor political party leaders and said: “if his (Mr Sunak’s) instinct was the same as the British people[‘s] he would never have contemplated for a moment not being there for the big international ceremony, and it shows how disconnected he is with the people of this country”.
He also told The Times, London that Mr Sunak “has no sense of our history, or feeling genuinely for the culture that is out there among ordinary people. He’s utterly disconnected in every way”.
In what way, exactly?
That Mr Sunak is an ethnic Indian, a practising Hindu, and a third generation immigrant to Britain?
Mr Farage didn’t say that, but some might impute he implied it.
In the middle of Britain’s general election campaign, this sets off all sorts of alarm bells.
The racist overtones in that judgement of Mr Sunak seem to be on a par with Boris Johnson’s verdict on Barack Obama. Remember when Mr Johnson, who wasn’t UK prime minister at the time, commented on the then US president’s removal of a bust of Churchill from Mr Obama’s office? He suggested it could be because of Mr Obama’s “part-Kenyan” ancestry, noting that this act was seen by some as a sign of an “ancestral dislike of the British Empire”.
[It’s worth adding that Mr Obama subsequently clarified the bust of Churchill had been moved to a significant position outside his private office on the second floor of the White House. Its removal from the US president’s Oval Office, he said, was because “There are only so many tables where you can put busts otherwise it starts to looks a little cluttered”. He admitted that as the first African American president, he felt a bust of Martin Luther King would be more “appropriate”, to remind him “of all the hard work of a lot of people who somehow allow me to have the privilege of holding this office”.]
Fair enough really.
I’m not saying Mr Sunak has any similar viable defence (other than bad judgement) of his decision to bow out of a high-profile D-Day commemoration event, but surely it’s a bit much to say this British-born-and-bred man “has no sense of our history, or feeling genuinely for the culture that is out there among ordinary people”?
Matthew d’Ancona, editor-at-large of The New European, has described Mr Farage’s verdict (paywall) on Mr Sunak as a form of “hate-washing”: “making voters feel more comfortable about their prejudice. In the US: you don’t dislike Black people, you’re just worried about critical race theory in schools. You’re not hostile to Latinos, you just fret about chaos at the border”.
He’s right.
In countries with solid legislation to deal with discriminatory behaviour, it’s always covert racism, the dog whistle that drives poisonous debate.
Originally published at https://www.rashmee.com