Britain’s Surprisingly Diverse Tories
AtlanticSep 09, 2022
UK Conservative Leadership Race: Hunt and Zahawi Eliminated
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Image copyright: Getty Images [via The Telegraph]
The Facts
Former Health Sec. Jeremy Hunt and current Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi have been knocked out of the Conservative leadership race in the first round of votes.
Hunt and Zahawi received the support of only 18 and 25 MPs respectively. 30 are needed to move to the second round.
The Spin
Right narrative
Despite Labour's obsession with identity politics, the Conservatives are leading the way: their leadership race looks set to provide the first BAME PM, the third Conservative woman PM, or even the first BAME, woman PM - something the Labours failed to do in their most recent leadership race despite having three women in the running. The opposition needs to face their hypocrisy.
Left narrative
This leadership race consists of a field of candidates with profoundly limited visions and anachronist ideologies. Although it has produced an admirable ethnically diverse group, they have a fixation on outdated austerity politics at a time when the UK is facing a cost-of-living crisis, enfeebled public services, and the fallout from Brexit. This contest will do little to offer Britain the renewal it desperately needs.
Progressive narrative
Although it seems surprising that a right-wing party like the Conservatives has such an impressive record on representation, this doesn't reflect a liberal or progressive recognition of the importance of 'identity politics' in the modern world. The British establishment has always used a few token minorities to implement control, in a strategy known as "divide and rule."
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