Rishi Sunak described himself as “British, English and British Asian”, in a riposte to the racially charged language used by people on the far right.
The UK’s first British Asian prime minister is speaking after his identity was questioned in a recent debate A claim Sunak was told by podcaster Konstantin Kisin that Sunak was not English because he was a “brown-skinned Hindu”.
Suella Braverman, the London-born Reform MP and former Home Secretary, appeared next Give credence to Kissin’s claims By saying that he doesn’t know English, he questioned whether that recognition is necessary for others born in the country.
Recently, Matthew Goodwin, Reform UK candidate in the upcoming Gorton and Denton by-election, Refuse to refuse Argument that UK-born people from minority ethnic backgrounds are not necessarily British.
Speaking for the first time since those interventions, the Southampton-born former Conservative leader warned that racism against him and his siblings was “strewn across his memory” and that Britain was “sliding back” to a time when racism was more open.
Sunak testified Independent Commission on Community and Cohesionco-chaired by Sajid Javid and Jon Cruddas, which aims to speak to millions of people to improve cohesion after the Southport tragedy and riots.
“I describe it as — I think there’s been some ‘shock jockery’ lately … people saying outrageous things to get attention,” Sunak said, when asked if there’s been a shift in the “Overton Window,” a term for the range of ideas and language that’s acceptable in mainstream debate.
“That’s my concern about the attention economy, or whatever you want to call it, and how it works now and how we consume media, whatever that language is, that rewards people for that kind of provocative, bigoted language.
Sunak is back Past comments He described how he and his siblings faced racism growing up in Southampton: “I don’t have a great memory of a lot of things, but it really sticks in my memory because racism stung like no other thing.”
Referring to Javid, who also addressed the issue in His recently published memoir Describing the racism he experienced in Rochdale in the 1970s, Sunak says he accepts such experiences are “less common” today.
But he added: “There’s always something we can do. And I certainly don’t want us to slip back into a world where racist language is often heard on the street or considered permissible on TV.”
The Commission was founded by the Together Coalition, Brendan Cox, whose husband Labor MP Jo Coxwas murdered by an extremist terrorist.
Sunak, who remains MP for Richmond and Northallerton in North Yorkshire, said: “We’re all British, under or alongside that, you can have different identities that you don’t disagree with. But you can.
“I’m British, I’m British Asian, I’m British Hindu, English. Sotonian – as we call people from Southampton and an apprentice Yorkshireman.”
On immigration, Sunak said, with hindsight, he would have liked to have implemented measures to reduce the numbers sooner.
On the tensions that led to street violence in 2024, he said it was “clear that something went wrong” and was exacerbated by Islamist extremists and extremists “eating each other”.
It was a “lie” that Britain was a racist country, Sunak said, citing Javid’s career and his own life, and adding that his successor as Tory leader was “a black woman who grew up in Nigeria”.
Speaking after a speech by Prime Minister Keir Starmer earlier in the week, Sunak addressed themes including “British values” and warned against allowing “people who think whiteness is British” to exploit immigration policy.
