Rohan Silva
“But the Tories are racist!” That was the reaction of a close friend when I “came out” to her as, ahem, thinking about batting for the other side.
I was in my early 20s at the time, and up to that point I’d always been Left-leaning. (If you’re not a socialist at 20, you haven’t got a heart, as they say…)
I’d spent time volunteering at the headquarters of the Labour Party, and one of the things that was making me think twice about my political allegiance was the way well-meaning Labour apparatchiks reacted to the colour of my skin.
They kept asking me to do things like go on BBC Asian Network, or hand out leaflets in predominantly Asian areas — because that’s what they thought brown politicos ought to be doing: talking to other brown people.
It’s a way of thinking that shapes Labour’s approach to race, with ethnic minorities seen not as individuals, but as members of an ethnic “community”. Consciously or not, it’s an extension of the way the Left tends to see people as part of a “class” rather than as individuals in their own right.
Whatever the underlying political theory, all I can say is that the way Labour folks treated me made me feel incredibly uncomfortable and self-conscious about my race, when frankly I’d have preferred not to think about it very much.
When I went to the dark side and started working for George Osborne and David Cameron, I was relieved to discover that they and other Tories saw me as a person, not a representative of an entire ethnic group.
I really think this individualistic mindset helps explain why the Tories are so far ahead of Labour when it comes to having a leadership team that reflects the diversity of modern Britain.
While Labour is still waiting for its first female leader, the Tories have had three female Prime Ministers, a non-white Prime Minister, four non-white Chancellors, a non-white Foreign Secretary and three non-white Home Secretaries.
The Tories have screwed up a lot recently, but they do deserve credit for cultivating such a diverse team without resorting to racially divisive quotas or demeaning positive discrimination.
It just goes to show the power of treating people with darker skin as individuals. Labour should try it sometime.
