Will Sunak become a victim of desi-style vote-bank politics?

It is unlikely that Rishi Sunak will stay on at 10, Downing Street beyond July 4, with the Conservative Party heading for a historic drubbing. This, even though the economy under Britain’s first ethnic-Indian Prime Minister has turned the corner. On the contrary, his British compatriots will probably remember his blonde and blue-eyed predecessors with more affection despite their handling of the aforementioned economy and other aspects of quotidian British life.

Will Britain ever have the humility to introspect on their treatment of Sunak and what that portends? After the Boris Johnson and Liz Truss implosions, Sunak could just as well have headed off to California—as he is being taunted about doing after July 4—but instead he chose to try and rescue his party and its government. He was just 42 and could have slipped back into the finance world and added to the millions in his kitty. Instead, he took on a big challenge.

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Sunak mistakenly thought that as he is British by birth and passport, most Britons regarded him as such too and would give him a fair chance. But the way he has been treated by mainstream media and social media reiterates that 82 per cent of the “multi-cultural” rainbow nation Britain is white, and still consider non-whites to be outsiders, though they are more cautious now about articulating it. Rainbow-wallas are acceptable as adjutants in politics, but not as top leaders. Yet.

Britons supposedly do not vote along ethnic lines but on bread and butter issues. Yet they are unmoved by Sunak’s improvement of the UK economy. It seems as if its majority white (83 per cent) voters are transferring their frustration over the failures of his blonde predecessors onto a suitable Indian whipping boy. Even as those whites subconsciously hew together when it comes to Indian-origin Sunak, it remains divided by class and ideology. Which they may come to regret.

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A little over 4 per cent of the UK is ethnically Black, of African and Caribbean origin; those of Asian origin are over double that number at 9.2 per cent. Given the weaponisation of the Black historical experience in the US and its spillover into Europe, politicians from that ethnic background even in the UK are more protected from racist biases than South Asians. So if Nigerian-origin Kemi Badenoch becomes Conservative Party leader, she may be more difficult to dislodge than ‘Indian’ Sunak.

In 140 constituencies out of 632 (excluding Northern Ireland), white Britons are now less than two-thirds of the population. But within that growing non-white demographic, a recent Ipsos study revealed that in Sunak’s first eight months as PM, some 68 per cent ethnic minority voters said they would vote Labour, only 16 per cent said they would vote Conservative. Before he became PM, those figures were 61 per cent to 14 per cent. What could those shifts in minority percentages indicate?

Labour has been traditionally popular with ethnic minority voters, though it and the Conservatives have been in power for 16 and 14 years each (at a stretch) in the last 30 years. However, a relatively new demographic popping up in pollsters’ calculations now is ‘Muslim’ that seemingly cuts across the racial aspect of the ‘BAME’ (Black, Asian, Minority Ethnic) block. Could a ‘Hindu’ Conservative PM have driven even more Muslim minority voters towards Labour?

A recent survey found British-Indian Londoners were more supportive of Sunak: 47 per cent were either very or somewhat satisfied and may benefit Conservatives in a few seats. It also revealed that international events (wars and ethnic tensions) do impact British politics: 60 per cent of Pakistani Londoners and 42 per cent of Indian Londoners said the two parties’ positions on Kashmir will decide how they vote. Gaza will definitely be another coalescing factor among Muslim voters.

Though the Islamic Party of Britain (1989-2006) fizzled out, there is a helpful website in the UK called The Muslim Vote which describes itself as “a dynamic coalition of organisations and individuals” and states: “We are a powerful, united force of 4 million acting in unison. We are focused on seats where the Muslim vote can influence the outcome. We are here for the long term. In 2024, we will lay the foundations for our community’s political future.” Is it IPB 2.0?

This strategy will sound very familiar to Indians. The Muslim Vote says it is ‘not a political party’ but offers members of that community help further their common causes, even helping prospective electoral runs—as independent candidates—in case the local units of recognised political parties do not seem to benefit their specific agenda. It is not hard to predict that the ultimate goal is to fashion a faith-based vote-bank, with sufficient numbers to set the agenda eventually.

The website lists all MPs from seats where Muslims comprise more than 10 per cent of the voting population (it calls them “Muslim-dense seats”) with a column indicating what their stance was during the vote on Gaza: for, against or abstained. In places where Muslims number over 30 per cent, it has proposed independent or Green Party or Workers Party of Britain alternatives. “The Muslim vote matters and it needs to be taken seriously by the UK’s political class,” it boldly asserts.

The concentration of Muslims (76 per cent) in the inner city areas of London, West Midlands, Yorkshire and the Humber can decide many seats there. And the angst over racism in Western countries may also be channelled towards furthering this agenda as any opposition can be ‘called out’ as Islamophobia based on racial differences. Also, the Gaza war has removed the eight-decade taboo on anti-Semitism, dovetailing nicely with the Labour Party’s own inclinations.

The recent council and mayoral elections jolted the Labour Party into realising that they had lost significant numbers of Muslim votes in their inner city strongholds over the Gaza issue, as it was seen as not being pro-Palestinian. Why Gaza mattered in the UK’s equivalent of panchayat and zila elections shows the way that country is heading when it comes to voting patterns. It is naïve to think that British politicians and parties will not factor in this desification of politics.

The launch of a “Hindu Manifesto UK 2024” by Hindu organisations there indicates moves towards a counter-consolidation. Demands include recognition of anti-Hindu speech and actions as a hate crime, protection of Hindu places of worship and dharmic values besides issues relating to education, representation, immigration, healthcare. But with just a million Hindus in the UK (as opposed to four times as many Muslims) the chances of being taken seriously are slim.

A series of very British political convulsions propelled Sunak into 10 Downing Street as the first Asian and “Hindu” PM at possibly the most challenging time in the 21st century. But Sunak is also likely to be the last “Hindu” if not Indian-origin PM that the UK will have in a long time, although a Muslim one eventually certainly cannot be ruled out. A lot will depend on how Britons respond to rising vote-bank politics that has long been the bane of the world’s largest democracy.

The author is a freelance writer. The views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.