7th September, 2022
Liz Truss, the new British Prime Minister, has chosen a cabinet in which a white man will not hold one of the country’s four most important ministerial positions.
Truss appointed Kwasi Kwarteng – whose parents came from Ghana in the 1960s – as Britain’s first black finance minister, while James Cleverly is the first black foreign minister.
Cleverly, whose mother hails from Sierra Leone and whose father is white, had in the past spoken about being bullied as a mixed-race child and has said the party needs to do more to attract black voters.
Suella Braverman, whose parents came to Britain from Kenya and Mauritius six decades ago, succeeds Priti Patel as the second ethnic minority home secretary, or interior minister, where she will be responsible for police and immigration.
The growing diversity is in part thanks to a push by the Conservative Party in recent years to put forward a more varied set of candidates for parliament.
British governments have until a few decades ago been made up of mostly white men.
It took until 2002 for Britain to appoint its first ethnic minority cabinet minister when Paul Boateng was appointed chief secretary to the Treasury.
Rishi Sunak, whose parents came from India, was Kwarteng’s predecessor in the finance job and the runner-up to Truss in the leadership context.
“Politics has set the pace. We now treat it as normal, this diversity,” said Sunder Katwala, director of non-partisan think-tank British Future, which focuses on migration and identity.
“The pace of change is extraordinary,” Katwala added.
However, the upper ranks of business, the judiciary, the civil service and the army are all still predominately white.
Reuters/NAN