Sunak’s elevation shows we are two nations: one at ease with racial diversity, another still badly divided
The remarkable thing about the election of Britain’s first non-white Prime Minister is how unremarkable, for most people, it has been. American television hosts have invented public outrage that never occurred. Left-wing columnists have succumbed to racism themselves as they realise the party they revile as bigoted is in fact relaxed about being led by a British Indian. Most voters, meanwhile, are keen only to know what Rishi Sunak can deliver.
The story tells us something we ought to understand, but often forget. Britain is not America, with its racialised culture wars, universities riven by critical race theory, and original sin of slavery and racism. Neither, in this respect at least, are we like most other European countries, where it remains unimaginable that a non-white politician might become prime minister or president.
We are, on the whole, relaxed about the multiracial nature of our country. Estimates suggest one in eight English households includes more than one ethnic group. In London, the number rises to one in five. Among those younger than 50, 12 per cent of couples are inter-ethnic, compared to six per cent for couples older than 50. These days, concern about under-performance in education focuses not on children from minority communities, but from the white working-class, who are far less likely to attend university than their Asian, Chinese, black and mixed-race contemporaries.
Whether we are talking education, or employment, health outcomes, home ownership or anything else, such disparities have little or nothing to do with skin colour. They can often be explained partially by factors such as economic geography: children with minority backgrounds are disproportionately likely to live in London, for example, where education outcomes are better, than white working-class children. But culture – whether that is connected to the aspirations of the kinds of people who are motivated to migrate, or norms and values shared by members of specific communities – is also crucial.