Why the Tories are more diverse than Labour

‘The candidates fighting to replace Boris Johnson as Conservative party leader and Britain’s prime minister reflect the country’s rich diversity,’ the England-hating New York Times put it earlier this week, through gritted teeth, ‘with six having recent ancestors hailing from outside Europe.’ 

It might seem initially curious that it’s the Conservatives who are so ethnically diverse. In British politics the realignment over Brexit caused identity to replace economics as the crunch issue, so that the gap between Labour and Tory voters on the issues of immigration and diversity has significantly grown, even if immigration’s salience has declined and remains low.

Yet despite this, the British right has become in some ways more diverse than the left, at least at the top. Among the candidates to be prime minister were the last three chancellors of the exchequer, Sajid Javid, Rishi Sunak and Nadhim Zahawi, all of Asian or Middle Eastern descent. Javid previously ran the Home Office, in 2019 handing over that great office of state to Priti Patel.