Unsurprisingly Barack Obama’s election has kicked off a debate about whether a non-white person could become Prime Minister in Britain. I’m an optimist on the question; I think we have come a long way from Cheltenham in 1992.
One thing worth noting is that the non-white population in Britain is only around 10 percent compared to more than twenty percent in America. Also, Britain’s history with race is less fraught than America’s. There wouldn’t be the same level of emotional intensity about the first non-white Prime Minister that there has been about the election of the first non-white President.
Trevor Phillips has a point about the dead hand of the party machine. But that is not unique to Britain. It is worth remembering that Obama lost a Congressional primary in 2000 in part because the party machine thought he would upset the ethnic balance if he won, he was considered not black enough compared to the former Black Panther Bobby Rush.
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