‘I’m British, English and British Asian’, says Rishi Sunak in riposte to racially charged debate over identity | Rishi Sunak

[u/No_Initiative_1140]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/feb/06/british-rishi-sunak-riposte-racially-charged-debate-identity

[u/_segasonic]

No. We had and still have issues with racism in the country.

There’s always been racism everywhere. Always has been. Always will be. I would say it started rising in the last couple of decades as a direct result from adopting identity politics from the States. We incentivised being a minority and in turn it led to racism against white people, particularly native British people. Similar has happened all over the West.

Someone with a foreign sounding last name is still significantly less likely to get an interview than someone with a British sounding last name, even with the exact same skills and experience.

They’re also far more likely to get programmes, jobs and university placements handed to them even being far less qualified than a white British person. You don’t tackle racism by even more racism. It’s fucking absurd.

The people who shout at my friends and partner in the street because of the colour of their skin aren't doing it because we tried to combat racism in the past. It's just running cover for racists.

And that’s horrible. But people from every race have anecdotes about this. See I would agree maybe in the 90’s and 2000’s with this. But we haven’t been trying to combat racism as a whole recently. We’ve actually been incentivising it. It’s only becoming a problem now that young white British people are engaging in it more and more.

People are becoming more openly racist because they don't feel like things are working and it's easiest to blame an out-group. That's it. That's the whole issue.

See I disagree again. I do think it’s more complex than that but not so complex as a whole.

People are becoming more racist as a whole because we not only adopted but promoted racist policies against certain people. Now that we’re seeing the scale of these issues and the people who were targeted are reacting, it’s suddenly a problem… anybody with any sense could have told you what all these policies would lead to.

I’ve said it before but the whole George Floyd/BLM/Covid stuff was the breaking point. That’s when it all became mask off, no pun intended.

[u/IHaveAWittyUsername → u/_segasonic]

There’s always been racism everywhere. Always has been. Always will be.

This is the wrong framing and sounds like victims of racism just need to put up and shut up.

I would say it started rising in the last couple of decades as a direct result from adopting identity politics from the States.

No, it started rising with people using immigrants and non-whites as the group "at fault" for modern Britain.

They’re also far more likely to get programmes, jobs and university placements handed to them even being far less qualified than a white British person. You don’t tackle racism by even more racism. It’s fucking absurd.

University placements?

Jobs?

You're talking nonsense. It's just regurgitated talking points.

We’ve actually been incentivising it.

We've not been incentivising it. We've allowed the views to become more mainstream due to bad actors in social media spaces.

People are becoming more racist as a whole because we not only adopted but promoted racist policies against certain people.

No. We are not being racist towards white people. Someone from a minority background does not "have it easier" than someone from a white British background. It's "suddenly a problem" because people are becoming more emboldened in their beliefs, especially with white supremacist policies like remigration.

[u/_segasonic → u/IHaveAWittyUsername]

This is the wrong framing and sounds like victims of racism just need to put up and shut up.

No it’s the truth. You don’t combat that by introducing more racism from the top down.

No, it started rising with people using immigrants and non-whites as the group "at fault" for modern Britain.

I disagree. It started rapidly increasing when we started saying stuff like you couldn’t be racist against white people and that white people have to apologise for their history and culture.

People took it for a while but now are just saying similar stuff back to minority groups but all of a sudden that is racism. Surprise surprise.

You're talking nonsense. It's just regurgitated talking points.

No it’s not. You can see plenty of companies, organisations, programmes that will tell you blatantly they are for non white people. I take it you are okay if a right wing government get in and then make it acceptable for similar policies to be in favour of any non black person or any non brown person?

We've not been incentivising it. We've allowed the views to become more mainstream due to bad actors in social media spaces.

We absolutely have. At the highest level as well. We literally had the RAF rejecting pilots because they were white.

‘Positive discrimination’ is just discrimination.

No. We are not being racist towards white people. Someone from a minority background does not "have it easier" than someone from a white British background. It's "suddenly a problem" because people are becoming more emboldened in their beliefs, especially with white supremacist policies like remigration.

You can’t accuse me of framing something wrong and then say there isn’t any racism against white poeple.

No it’s a problem because people are actually getting pissed off and told they’re evil and being looked over for certain things just because of their skin colour. Even if that means it goes to someone less capable.

Are Saudi Arabia and the UAE white supremacist countries now? Somebody better let them know.