Liz Truss is the third woman to lead the British government, after Margaret Thatcher and Theresa May. She was elected by the majority of some 142,000 voting members of the Conservative Party, mainly old and white men, against Rishi Sunak, grandson of Indian immigrants.
After being received by Queen Elizabeth II, she announced her government on Tuesday. James Cleverly is Britain’s first black foreign minister: he grew up in south-east London, with a mother from Sierra Leone.
Kwasi Kwarteng is also the first black to hold the position of Chancellor of the Exchequer. He is the son of immigrants from Ghana who arrived in the UK in the 1960s. He takes over from Nadhim Zahawi, a Kurd born in Iraq.
Suella Braverman, whose parents of Indian origin arrived in the UK in the 1960s from Kenya and Mauritius, becomes Home Secretary. When she was elected as an MP in 2015, she took an oath on the Dhammapada, one of the most famous Buddhist texts.
The face of the British executive has changed radically in a few years. The country had its first black member of government in 2002, under the Labor government of Tony Blair. And in 2010, its Muslim prime minister under conservative David Cameron.
It was, moreover, at Cameron’s instigation that things began to move among the Conservatives: he mobilized to have women and people from diverse backgrounds present themselves in Parliament, hoping that his party would be more like modern Britain.
The Tories have now made greater progress on ethnic and gender diversity in their senior ranks than the Labor opposition, which has yet to elect a woman leader.
– Hard line –
But having studied in elite schools and universities always seems to be a must.
Kwasi Kwarteng went through Eton College, the secondary school – for boys – appointed to the royal family and the aristocracy of the whole world, where David Cameron and Boris Johnson passed before him, before going to Cambridge .
It is also in this prestigious university that Suella Braverman studied. James Cleverly was also privately educated before joining the army.
“It’s on social origin that we really need to progress. (…) We need more policies that come from an ordinary social background,” said Rob Ford, professor of political science at the university. from Manchester.
“But ethnicity matters,” he adds. “We hear people from minorities say: They (the politicians, editor’s note) do not represent us. It is therefore important to have people around the table who share these experiences of discrimination or racism”.
With this new government, should we expect a pro-diversity policy? Some positions of the new ministers are already known.
Suella Braverman is admired on the right for her attacks on the “woke” ideology, which denounces the injustices suffered by minorities but whose supposed excesses have become the bane of conservatives around the world.
She ardently supports the plan to send illegal migrants back to Rwanda, launched by her predecessor Priti Patel, whose parents were also from India.
“I don’t think a Conservative minister from diversity will necessarily have progressive views. (…) Rather the opposite,” says Rob Ford. “They had a hard line on Rwanda, immigration. It’s easier for them to say certain things and reject accusations of racism.”
“Some have extremely individualistic views,” adds the expert. “And their position is: Everyone can be successful regardless of their social background”.