Rishi Sunak, Claire Coutinho and the political rise of British Indians

Rishi Sunak is the UK’s first ethnic Asian Prime Minister and the first non-Christian. (Disraeli converted to the Church of England). None of which seemed to matter as he and his wife accompanied the King and Queen to Crathie Kirk this weekend, during their all but obligatory seasonal stay at Balmoral last weekend. 

Sunak is proud of his heritage as he explained in 2015: “British Indian is what I tick on the census, we have a category for it. I am thoroughly British, this is my home and my country, but my religious and cultural heritage is Indian, my wife is Indian. I am open about being a Hindu.” He believes that is not a big issue here, whereas it might be in the US: “Religion pervades political life there, and that is not the case here, thankfully”. 

Sunak’s rise is widely celebrated as proof of this country’s progress towards a diverse multi-ethnic society. Black and Asian MPs only started being elected consistently to parliament forty years ago in the 1980s. Although there were three MPs of Indian origin between 1892 and 1929. Professor Dadabhai Naoroji, an anti-imperialist from Gujarat, became the first British Indian MP after being elected for the Liberal Party in Finsbury Central at the 1892 general election. Pro-British Mancherjee Bhownaggree was elected as Conservative MP for Bethnal Green in 1895. Later, Shapurji Saklatvala, a Parsi born into one of India’s wealthiest families, was adopted as the Labour candidate for Battersea North in 1921 despite joining the Communist Party in the same year.

Ethnic minorities are not a bloc. There is wide variation between and within groups of people with shared ethnic backgrounds. The 2021 Census broke down the population of England and Wales by ethnicity including: White 81.7 per cent, Indian 3.1 per cent, Mixed 2.9 per cent, Pakistani 2.7 per cent, Black African 2.5 per cent, Asian Other 1.6 per cent, Bangladeshi 1.1 per cent, Black Caribbean 1 per cent, Chinese 0.7 per cent.

One and a half million “British Indians”, now make up the biggest ethnic minority group. Of these, two thirds of adults from Hindu and Sikh backgrounds have “white collar” jobs, and about one in three of those who are Muslim.

This is politically significant. Labour has long had an important base of support among voters of Pakistani descent. A majority of British Indian Hindus and Sikhs support the Conservatives. That’s why Tory Prime Minister David Cameron attended a rally at Wembley stadium for India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, leader of the Hindu nationalist BJP. The crowd was mostly Gujarati. When Sunak and his wife, Akshata Murty, daughter of an Indian billionaire, attend the G20 hosted by Modi next week they are expected to make a public visit to Humayun’s tomb. In what is widely seen as a deliberate snub of India by China it will be the first G20 summit that President Xi has not attended in person. Sunak’s innocent self-identification is unlikely to escape the notice of the racially sensitive Chinese.

New prime ministers leave their personal stamp on government when they reshuffle their ministerial team. Sunak had little scope to express himself with fresh appointments when he took over amidst political chaos a year go. His priorities were restoring stability to government and attempting to unite the feuding Conservative factions. He largely kept intact the cabinet the nation was familiar with. His chancellor, foreign, defence and home secretaries were hand-me-downs from Truss and Johnson. 

His cautious mini-reshuffle last week was different. Sunak faces no immediate threats to his leadership and needs to fight an uphill general election battle. His appointments were a chance to show what he stands for. 

Making Grant Shapps, a competent and versatile “communicator”, defence secretary was a quick and unthreatening fix forced on the Prime Minister by Ben Wallace’s decision to quit. The elevation of Claire Coutinho to Shapps’ brief was a signature move by Sunak.

As those scrambling to put together profiles of the little-known first term MP who is now energy secretary and net zero secretary quickly pointed out, in Coutinho the Prime Minister appears to have promoted a female version of himself. Like the Prime Minister, she is the daughter of immigrants. Her parents, who are Christians from Goa, came from India to the UK in the 1970s. Sunak’s parents, a GP and a pharmacist, of Indian Hindu descent, immigrated from East Africa in the 1960s. 

There are further parallels between the two. Both went to elite private schools – “JAGS”, John Alleyn’s Girls School in Coutinho’s case. Both went onto the University of Oxford, though she studied Philosophy and Maths rather than PPE, the Westminster politicians’ Cordon Bleu. Both worked as investment bankers. Coutinho’s first job in government was as an aide to then Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak. She said she wanted to help deliver Brexit, which she voted for in the referendum, “from the inside”. 

Sunak is the first British prime minister who has been a consistent Brexiteer by conviction. His British identity comes from British imperial history, when European nation states were in competition with each other over newly explored territory, rather than enmeshed in unavoidable intermingling between geographical neighbours. Suella Braverman has stated baldly: “I am proud of the British Empire”, a viewpoint that may well strike a chord with nativist Tory voters in her Hampshire constituency. 

Historically, and in terms of numbers, Conservative governments under Macmillan and Heath and since 2016 have turned out to be more welcoming to non-European immigrants than Labour administrations. 

Some 65 out of 650 MPs come from ethnic minority backgrounds, 41 for Labour, 22 for the Conservatives and two for the Liberal Democrats. But the Tories have made more room at the very top. Fresh from his chilly exchanges with the London Mayor Sadiq Khan over ultralow emission zones, the Labour leader dropped Rosena Allin-Khan and Preet Kaur Gill from his top team in his decisive shadow cabinet reshuffle. In terms of ethnicity, Sunak’s top team is more diverse than Starmer’s. 

The prominence of people with imperial heritage in the Conservative party – including Sunak, Braverman, Priti Patel, Kemi Badenoch and Kwasi Kwarteng – has shifted the idea of British identity and with it the “Overton window” of British politics away from participation in the predominantly white, Christian, European union. 

As in the United States, there seems to be licence for some descendants of immigrants to take a harsher rhetorical stand against further immigration than would be acceptable from other politicians. 

Yet Sunak’s critics say there is nothing more morally repugnant than those who have themselves benefited from immigration and refuge refusing it to others in need.

Attacks like this on “elites” are the common currency of political debate. The issue of race is more sensitive, which many of those involved in politics at a national level try to dismiss, ignore or leave unspoken. They would like race not to matter politically.

Opinion surveys suggest that it is a significant factor issue outside the diverse big cities of Britain, notably in the so-called “red wall” assembled so successfully by Boris Johnson in 2019. Sunak will have to keep those voters on board with the Conservatives if he is to be invited back to Crathie Kirk. 

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