LONDON: Rishi Sunak addressed his first Conservative Party conference as party leader in Manchester on Wednesday and used his own elevation as the country’s first Indian-origin PM as proof that the UK was not a racist country and that his skin colour was not a “big deal”.
Dubbed as the most important speech of his political career nearly a year after he took charge as Tory leader, there was a lot riding on the 43-year-old leader’s address to the governing party activists ahead of a general election expected next year.
After a warm and personal introduction by wife Akshata Murty, who praised his “honesty, integrity and strength of character”, Sunak went on to lay out his plans for what he hopes would win him the British public’s mandate at the next polls. “Never let anyone tell you that this is a racist country. It is not,” said Sunak. “My story is a British story. A story about how a family can go from arriving here with little to Downing Street in three generations,” he said.
He went on to point to Home Secretary Suella Braverman and Energy Secretary Claire Coutinho as reflective of what the Tories offer migrant families.