Last October, I was thrilled to get an appointment with a special adviser in Downing Street. Even though I stood for the Conservatives in the Chippenham constituency in 2010, getting this appointment felt like a great achievement after years of trying to engage with the party again.
I’d been drawn to stand for the party by David Cameron, and his “A-list” of diverse parliamentary candidates, of which I became a member. For me, though, it seemed as if all the changes Cameron had made to make the Conservative party more attractive to people of colour had been pushed aside by later regimes embarrassed by such initiatives.
So imagine my surprise when the image that popped up on my computer screen for my scheduled call from No 10 was a black face. It belonged to Samuel Kasumu. Wow, things are changing, I thought. Perhaps the new leadership had been able to see that having a young, articulate, black Conservative in the heart of Downing Street would be a great asset – particularly one like him who, it appeared, was unafraid and unashamed to stand up for his colour. It would send a message that black people were also Conservative, and that their input was valued.
Instantly, I became galvanised. I offered him my services to help show black Britain that the Conservative party is open to us all, and that black people need not feel our only home is the Labour party.
When the story broke last week that Kasumu had wanted to resign, my heart sank. He subsequently agreed to stay on. But when I read his long, heartfelt resignation letter to his boss, Boris Johnson, setting out his concern that the party is “choosing to pursue a politics steeped in division” – words he has not retracted – it once again posed the question: does the Conservative party still have a problem with race?
“Black and Asian people are significantly less likely to vote Conservative, despite often having values that are aligned,” he wrote. “The gains made under David Cameron in 2015 have been eroded in subsequent elections.”
There is a sprinkling of black MPs in the party. One of them, Kwasi Kwarteng, has just been promoted to the cabinet. Yet none of them can be celebrated for standing up for black Britain. Only last week, Kwarteng railed against the idea of “decolonising the curriculum” (that is, rebalancing our teaching so that the voices of those who were colonised are heard more often).
And we have a black equalities minister, Kemi Badenoch, who ditches diversity training and who claims anti-racism campaigners want children to be taught that black people are good and white people are bad. Other black MPs remain silent, despite the huge national support for Black Lives Matter since the death of George Floyd last year.
This could be because their job is to represent their mainly white constituencies, for whom race issues may not be a top priority. And carrying the race flag is not necessarily going to win them favour among white colleagues, whose support is essential in climbing the greasy political pole.
On race, it seems the Conservatives have always been behind the curve, leaving a great void that has been filled by the Labour party. Unlike Labour, my own party has no strong voices speaking up on black people’s behalf – giving the impression that we are not a place where people of colour can feel comfortable.
When the subject of race does come up, the Conservatives look clumsy and out of step. Take the Windrush debacle, in which black British people were denied health treatment, benefits, and were threatened with deportation: it will take years to repair the damage this scandal caused.
Similarly, the debate around taking the knee. I agree that it would not have been right for the prime minister to make this gesture, but the media management of this – in which the foreign secretary seemed to think it originated in Game of Thrones – made the party come across as uncaring or lacking understanding.
Kasumu’s concerns about the party are worrying, and now is the time to address the issues he raises.
Today, the government is facing the major problem of trying to fight the pandemic while many black and Asian people are not taking up the Covid-19 vaccine because of mistrust. This should be a warning. Unless we rebuild trust within these communities, the Conservative party will become a no-go area for black Britain. Only 20% of racial-minority voters backed the Conservatives at the last election.
And for those black and Asian MPs who, admittedly, have the difficult job of balancing the needs of their mainly white constituencies along with those of black Britain, we need you to show courage and stand up for people of colour, who only have the voices of the Labour party to listen to.
Politics is a brutal business, and to get on you need your (mainly white) colleagues onside. I know all MPs will have many scars to show for how they got to where they are now. Black Britain has been made to feel irrelevant, unwelcome and abandoned by the Conservative party. For those of us not in positions of influence, we ask its senior figures to act with bravery, because you are the ones who can make the necessary change.
Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones – the Black Farmer – was a prospective parliamentary candidate for the Conservative party in the 2010 election
