EDITORIAL: Ethnic or religious identity did not seem to matter anymore in British politics when last October Rishi Sonak was elected as prime minister and earlier this month Humza Yousaf as the new leader of the Scottish National Party to become First Minister of Scotland.
But chauvinism still persists at the highest echelon of government as exhibited by Home Secretary Suella Braverman in a recent interview with Sky News.
In it she singled out British Pakistani men for her bigoted, Islamophobic comments, claiming that “we’ve seen... vulnerable white English girls, sometimes in care, sometimes who are in challenging circumstance, being pursued and raped and drugged by gangs of British Pakistani men who’ve worked in child abuse rings or networks.”
Even when countered with facts by the show host she kept demonising Muslims, insisting on “the predominance of certain ethnic groups [in such crimes] ... British Pakistani males who hold cultural values totally at odds with British values, who see women in a demeaned and illegitimate way, and who pursue an outdated and frankly heinous approach in terms of the way they behave.”
Her pernicious lies have been belied by her own department. Press reports point out that the previous Home Office had commissioned a research study which found most group child sex offenders were men under the age of 30 and majority were white.
And that, there was not enough evidence to suggest members of grooming gangs are more likely to be Asian or black than other ethnicities. Clearly, Braverman’s remarks are reflective of her personal deep-seated hatred towards Muslims, which can easily expose them to violence by white supremacist gangs.
Given her mindset, she may be harbouring same views about other racial minorities, including British Indians, but could ill-afford to offend her boss who is of Indian descent.
As expected, many civilised people in that country have called her out for fuelling racial discord. Pakistan has also reacted strongly, as it should have, to the inflammatory remarks.
At the weekly briefing on Wednesday, the Foreign Office spokesperson termed them “dangerous, discriminatory, and xenophobic”, and painting a highly misleading picture that signals the intent to target and treat British Pakistanis differently.
It is not enough, however, for Islamabad to express disapproval of the malicious words uttered not by some fringe elements but a member of the cabinet.
It should demand an apology from the British government, if not resignation of the Home Secretary, for demonising British Pakistanis.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023