Rishi Sunak, Indian. Sajid Javid, Pakistan. Kemi Badenoch, Nigeria. Preeti Patel, Indiana. Nadim ZahaviIraqi Kurd, Sulla Braverman, Indian. More than half (6 out of 11). Leading candidates to succeed Boris Johnson – the leader of the Conservatives will announce on September 5 – they are people of color, representatives of ethnic minorities. But the beauty is that nobody in London cares about it: because it doesn’t even get noticed in the newspapers. Because, according to polls,84 percent of Britons are comfortable with the idea of ​​a non-white head of government, while 58 percent think the Prime Minister’s ethnicity is irrelevant.

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The favorite of the moment, former Chancellor of the Exchequer AltarThe son of Indian immigrants to Great Britain from East Africa, his grandparents were originally from the Punjab; Javid And Son of a Pakistani bus driver whose wife is from the Indian subcontinent and doesn’t even speak English; Badenoch Raised in Lagos, settled in Great Britain at 16; Patel comes from an Indian family from Gujarat who arrived via Uganda; Sahavi He arrived as a refugee with his family fleeing Saddam Hussein’s Iraq at age 9, not speaking a word of English; Braverman She too was born to Indian parents who had migrated from Africa. No one here defines those politicians by the vaguely racist term “”.Second generation immigrants(unless earlier): If one is British, one is British, period. Race is another indicator of how far London is from the rest of Europe: the members of the EU Commission are all white, while a quarter of the Cabinet Johnson It was colored.

The BrexitAmong other effects, this has had the effect of reducing the presence of ethnic minorities in the European Parliament: Because most of the black MEPs were British, while there are many white national delegations. It is also notable that a leadership race dominated by members of ethnic minorities belongs to the Conservative Party, the right, which critics accuse of transforming into a nationalist-populist force under Johnson. But actually I The Tories The British are very practical, not ideologicalIt has always matched reality: while it is hard to imagine non-white politicians running for the leadership of the Brothers or the League in Italy, not to mention Marine Le Pen’s party in France.

It’s a testament to how diverse and multicultural Britain is, on your own skin, whatever color it is. On the other hand, one only has to turn on the television to notice: BBC news is presented by black journalists (often women), and the advertisements always have characters of different ethnic groups, where the landlord is black and the carpenter is black. He’s white and has his work cut out for him (even Aperol’s posters on the subway depict fictional aperitifs in Italy, where the participants are multiracial because no one would dare represent a monochromatic reality). In the press, bank and supermarket testimonials are full of fat women wearing the Islamic headscarf, the hijab. Incidentally, 5 out of 11 candidates for the head of government are women: gender equality is a given in Britain too. Even in this case the Conservatives led the way, having already produced not one, but two female Prime Ministers (Margaret Thatcher and Theresa May). Meanwhile, in Italy, in a galaxy far, far away, there is a fight over the Iuse school …