Fury as US TV comedian says UK had ‘race backlash’ over Rishi
RISHI Sunak has hit back at claims he faced a racist ‘backlash’ after becoming the UK’s first British-Asian Prime Minister.
Downing Street said the new premier does not believe Britain is a racist country, following accusations by South African comedian and broadcaster Trevor Noah that there was outcry from bigots that ‘Indians are going to take over’.
The monologue, from Noah’s US satirical news programme The Daily Show, prompted a staunch defence of the UK.
Mr Sunak’s former Cabinet colleague Sajid Javid, who has spoken about being racially abused throughout his life, was among those to criticise Noah.
He wrote: ‘Simply wrong. A narrative catered to his audience, at a cost of being completely
‘Detached from reality’
detached from reality. Britain is the most successful multi-racial democracy on Earth and proud of this historic achievement.’
Broadcaster Piers Morgan accused the US media of ‘falsely portraying Britain as a racist country’. He said: ‘There’s been no such backlash against Sunak, you race-baiting twerps.’
A Downing Street spokesman, asked whether Mr Sunak believes Britain is a racist country, said: ‘No, he doesn’t.’
Mr Sunak is not only the first Prime Minister of Asian descent, but also the first practising Hindu.
But in a video posted on Twitter from The Daily Show, Noah said: ‘Watching the story of Rishi Sunak becoming England’s first Prime Minister of colour, of Indian descent, of all these things and then seeing the backlash is one of the more telling things about how people view the role that they or their people have played in history.
‘And what I mean by that is this, you hear a lot of the people saying, “Oh, they’re taking over, now the Indians are going to take over Great Britain and what’s next?” ‘And I always find myself going, “So what? What are you afraid of?” ’
He suggested that fear was based on the previously oppressed taking revenge against their tormentors upon getting into power.
Mr Sunak’s grandparents were from Punjab state before the subcontinent was divided into India and Pakistan in 1947 after British colonial rule ended. His family moved to east Africa and then settled in the UK in the 1960s.
Noah, 38, grew up in a mixed race family during apartheid.