Most of the UK gives the impression they could not care less about the upcoming contest for leadership of the Conservative Party. But the new leader of the Conservative Party will become leader of the opposition, and who that is matters. Whoever you may support politically, the government needs to be held to account and that requires an opposition.
Why we should celebrate the candidates
There is much that could be said about each of the candidates, but I want to concentrate on two – Kemi Badenoch MP and Priti Patel MP. I think there are a number of reasons why these two are different and should be celebrated. Patel may have been knocked out of this contest, but she is still a formidable force in the Conservative Party.
The first is their gender. They are both female and the number of historical female leaders of the opposition is small – Margaret Thatcher from 1975 to 1979, Margaret Beckett for 71 days in 1994 between the death of John Smith and the election of Tony Blair, and Harriet Harman for four months in each of 2010 and 2015. Only Thatcher went on to be prime minister. The UK’s subsequent female prime ministers, Theresa May and Liz Truss, were never leaders of the opposition.
We should celebrate them for their rarity. We have had thousands of years of the world being run by males, and the results have been patchy at best. For most of that time, many of the males have gathered together to exclude women from power. It is only just over a century since women gained the vote and just one year later in 1919, the UK could celebrate its first female MP when Nancy Astor took her seat.
Possibly the greatest thing we can celebrate about the success of Badenoch and Patel is their heritage. Both are the children of immigrants who came to the UK. Badenoch’s childhood included time in the USA and her parents’ birthplace of Nigeria, but both families succeeded in making their lives in the UK. That is worth celebrating.
How immigration has shaped the UK
Immigration has shaped and honed the people and the UK. Humans arrived in what would become the British Isles sometime in the palaeolithic age, at least 12,000 years ago. The first historical record is of the Romans, followed by the Germanic speakers who became known as Anglo-Saxons. By the eighth century, bands of Vikings were invading and some were settling. The Norman invasion of 1066 added people, language and genetics to the melting pot.
There have been many immigrations. They include Dutch protestants, groups of Flemings and French Huguenots and the Great Famine in Ireland drove a million people to settle in Britain. Germans arrived in the 19th century as did more than 350,000 Russian Jews. A quarter of a million Belgian refugees fled to the UK during the first world war. 4,000 Basque children were housed at a camp near Southampton in 1937 having fled General Francisco Franco’s fascism. One was the eventual MP, Michael Portillo.
120,000 Polish veterans stayed after the second world war, and we invited thousands from the Caribbean and Indian subcontinent to join us on these islands. This mixing of peoples was part of what created a remarkable society. Not all that the British and the British Empire did can be described as good, but the influence of the people of Britain upon the world will stand for centuries.
Many of these waves of new people were refugees, as mainland European countries persecuted protestants, but they were welcomed to the UK for economic reasons. 40-50,000 Huguenots helped boost the silk weaving industry by bringing new skills and fashions. By the end of the 17th century, they were 5% of the London population and, a third of those living in Canterbury. Centres were developed in Sandwich, Southampton, Norwich, Maidstone and various towns in Kent and the south-east.
Creating a remarkable society
The UK continued its policies of welcoming many from the Caribbean to join the NHS as nurses and to become employees of London Transport. People from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh were encouraged to find work in the textile, motor and engineering industries of the Midlands and the North of England.
Many individuals have crossed seas and continents to make their lives in the UK, including: Albert Einstein, Jacob Epstein, Lucian Freud, Sigmund and Anna Freud, Shappi Khorsandi, Michael Marks, Karl Marx, Freddie Mercury and Rita Ora. The children and grandchildren of refugees include Suella Braverman, Ben Elton, Margaret Hodge, and David and Ed Milliband.
And this mixing of peoples was part of what created a remarkable society.
The UK: a home to many
Some bursts of immigration have been part of a specific intent to help disadvantaged people. 10,000 mainly Jewish children were welcomed from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia in 1938 and 1939 as part of the Kindertransport, following Kristallnacht.
When Idi Amin expelled thousands of Asians from Uganda in 1972, the UK opened its borders and gave more than 27,000 refugees somewhere they could work, live, love, grow, and call home. Some Ugandan Asians had left before the expulsion, and this included the parents of Priti Patel.
More recently of the 210,000 Ukrainian refugees who arrived in the UK following the Russian invasion of their country, 160,000 remain. About two-thirds say they intend to stay and make their lives in the UK with their families.
Patel and Badenoch are living examples of what the United Kingdom can really be – a place where you can succeed. And whilst everything may still not be as equal as it should be for everyone, with luck you can succeed – whatever your faith, your gender, your colour, or your heritage. The people and the communities of the UK should be proud of this.
Given our Viking, Saxon, Celtic, and Norman heritage, the arrival of people from other lands means very few have any claim to being purely British or English in ancestral origin. Some Scottish, Welsh and Irish people may have better claims to their respective ancestry but rarely for more than a few generations.
Taking a stand
I may be an immigrant to France but my background, my history and my family are still very largely in the UK. I am British at least back to my 13th great grandparents who were born in Yorkshire in the early 1500s. Richard de Hemyngway and Annis de Gye were Norman, at least in name. And I carry the Irish blood of my mother’s mother. My links to the UK may have been extended but they are still as strong as ever, and I am proud of what the UK has proved itself capable.
I am proud of all those who took to the streets to stand against those who found an excuse to riot and injure and attempt to burn alive innocent children, women and men – people who should have had their asylum claims properly and rapidly assessed so the vast majority could join our communities and work and pay taxes. ‘Nans Against Nazis’ exemplifies what the UK really means.
And by a circuitous and unfortunate route that brings us back to our two candidates. Whilst there is good reason to praise them, there is nothing to celebrate about the policies they have supported, managed or are currently proposing regarding immigration.
The contradiction of policies
Patel still defends her record as home secretary, despite it including the Rwanda scheme which wasted £700mn. The Nationality and Borders Act she introduced criminalises refugees reaching the UK by irregular means when there were no legal routes available. She was accused of misleading parliament by claiming the bill would create safe and legal routes when it made no mention of them. A group of leading immigration lawyers concluded that the act breaches the UN Refugee Convention and the European Convention on Human Rights, and the UK is party to both.
In 2018, Badenoch welcomed the removal of annual limits to work visas and international students. But she has changed her views. Before the election she is understood to have called for asylum seekers to be prevented from lodging individual legal appeals against their removal to Rwanda, a scheme now cancelled by the new government. And most recently she has attacked Home Office staff for wanting to look after refugees and asylum seekers.
Badenoch and Patel could have been examples of what puts the ‘Great’ into Great Britain but unfortunately, they have chosen to be selfish and small-minded.
