The fight for Boris Johnson’s legacy is bone-chilling – and remarkably diverse. The roots of the next British Prime Minister could lie in Nigeria or in India. Conservatives praise the party’s tolerance. But experts say: Appearances are deceptive.
Who offers more? Taxes down, illegal foreigners out – and an ultra-tough course against the EU: In the power struggle to succeed British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, applicants with conservative positions are outdoing each other. After two rounds of internal elections, it is evident that even Liberal candidates will have to abandon their positions to remain in the running.
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“It’s a march to the right,” said Ian Blackford, leader of the Scottish National Party in the UK Parliament. Under Johnson, the Conservative Party has moved even further to the right. The influence of the right-wing conservative wing, which sees itself as the guardian of Brexit, has increased enormously.
“It’s a completely different Conservative Party than it was ten years ago,” Blackford said in an interview with the German Press Agency. “Essentially, the Tory Party has become the Brexit Party.” Blackford’s conclusion: the Conservatives have the right-wing populists, who just a few years ago stole voters from them with tough positions, overtaken on the right.
Author Peter Oborne is convinced that even after Johnson’s exit, the thrust will remain the same. “I don’t think it’s going to get any better. It could get worse,” warns the journalist, who once voted for Brexit himself. “They will continue the policy of confrontation with the EU, continue the war on human rights, weaponize asylum seekers and generally attack the rights and freedoms of the British people.”
Johnson’s government has implemented several controversial laws. For example, the police can ban demonstrations if they fear noise pollution. Cabinet members are blatantly threatening to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights because the judges are undermining Britain’s right to independence.
Conservative politicians have long been warning of radicalization. “I have the impression that we no longer have a Conservative Party, but an English nationalist government,” said former Tory party leader Chris Patten shortly before Johnson’s end.
The ultra-conservative stance of the government is astounding when you take a look at the field of candidates. Former finance minister Rishi Sunak with roots in India and former state secretary Kemi Badenoch with ancestors from Nigeria have good prospects.
If you add Attorney General Suella Braverman as the daughter of Indian parents, Chancellor of the Exchequer Nadhim Zahawi as an Iraqi refugee and ex-Health Minister Sajid Javid, son of a Pakistani bus driver, more than half of the eight politicians who made it into the election have a migration background.
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Tory politicians proudly emphasize that the choice of candidates shows a diversity that has never been found in the opposition Labor Party. However, critics point to the policies of the Tories – which is anything but progressive.
Home Secretary Priti Patel, for example, whose parents once fled Uganda, presents himself as a ruthless opponent of immigrants. Anyone entering the country illegally should be flown out to Rwanda, regardless of their asylum status and origin. The project has been criticized by asylum experts as unlawful – but supported by all potential Johnson successors.
“It’s the most diverse government in history, but it also has the most racist policies of any government,” Kehinde Andrews, Professor of Black Studies at the University of Birmingham, told the BBC. The black and Asian politicians are just “fig leaves for white oppression”.
In addition, the candidates are of different origins. However, almost all of them come from the same social environment: wealthy and privately educated.
The wife of ex-Finance Minister Sunak, who received the most votes in the second round, owns a hundreds of millions pound stake in Indian IT giant Infosys, owned by her father N.R. Narayana Murty co-founded. The Tory contest lacked people “who are considered ordinary,” says political scientist Tim Bale of Queen Mary University London.
SNP parliamentary group leader Blackford is much tougher on the political opponent. Only “terrible candidates” are available as possible prime ministers, Blackford complained in parliament. “Whoever becomes the next Tory leader will make Genghis Khan look like a moderate.”