The fall of the conservative government marks the end of tribal politics in South Asia

The ouster of the British Conservative government this week is significant not only for the prospect of a Labour government more focused on solving the country's chronic problems, but also because it marks the end of the first administration in which politicians of South Asian origin played a prominent but often significantly negative role.

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The flow of MPs whose parents are of foreign origin is expected to continue, particularly from South Asia, which represents 26 MPs in the new parliament according toa review posted on X.>

In the outgoing government, two female ministers from the right wing of the Conservative Party have been widely criticised for pursuing their leadership ambitions within the party, courting the party's rank and file, rather than focusing on sound policies.

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Priti Patel and Suella Braverman, both former home secretary, have pursued failed anti-immigration policies, despite coming from immigrant families who benefited from their welcome in the UK. They are now partnered by Kemi Badenoch, whose parents are Nigerian. She was a more constructive trade and business secretary, although she also aggressively courted members of the largely right-wing Conservative Party.

Rishi Sunak has been tasked with managing the political debris inherited from his predecessors as prime minister, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss.

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Unfortunately, although he had built a solid reputation as Chancellor of the Exchequer (Minister of Finance), he quickly showed that he lacked the political instinct and experience to lead and survive in a government torn by political differences on a range of issues, including immigration.

Heunexpectedly announced premature elections Without adequate preparation, he has suffered a series of fiascos. The worst was when he left France a day before other world leaders for the commemorations of the 80th anniversary of the Second World War landings to return to Britain. This led to much criticism.

His parents, of Indian origin, arrived in Britain from East Africa well after the war and he appears not to have realised the significance of the event for those whose British parents were alive and perhaps serving in 1944.

If there was ever a time when his origins counted against him (and I never thought they mattered), it was certainly at this point, drastically reducing his personal support in the middle of an election campaign. It prompted Nigel Farage, leader of the far-right Reform Party, to say Sunak doesn't understand our historyand culture, a rare public reference to its origins.

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Of the three female ministers, Braverman was and still is the one who most brazenly focused on leadership. Born to Kenyan-Indian and Mauritian parents,She adopted a dangerously strident anti-immigrant tonethereby violating the collective responsibility of the firm and failing to resolve the major and persistent problem of the halting of the crossing of the Channel by boat people from France.

Such behaviour prompted Robert Buckland, the former justice minister, to attack him indirectly when he said, after losing his seat in the general election:fed up with the politics of performance artI have seen Conservative Party colleagues pose, write inflammatory editorials and say stupid things that they know have no evidence for, instead of doing their job.

British politics, however, is not free of Braverman (who was sacked by Sunak), Badenoch and Patel, 52, born in London to Ugandan-Indian parents. All three were re-elected as MPs and are alllikely candidates to take over from Sunakwho agreed to remain at the head of the party and the opposition until the succession is organized.

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Badenoch, 44, has the best chance of winning. The party could, however, opt for more centrist candidates, such as James Cleverly, who also comes from an immigrant family, with an English father and a Sierra Leonean mother. He has built a strong reputation, first working with Boris Johnson and more recently as foreign secretary and home secretary, and would be a serious competitor to other centrist candidates.

Braverman (and perhaps Patel too) is in favour of the Conservative Party admitting Farage, the charismatic politician whose Reform Party won an astonishing 14% of the vote in the general election, despite winning only five seats in Parliament.

The Conservative Party will now be divided over how to deal with Farage, as he will always try to upstage them. But he said his main target was the Labour Partywhere he hopes to win votes in the next general election. Immigration will be the savvy campaigner's main political battleground, following his earlier success as a crucial leader on Brexit.

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Keir Starmer's cabinet>

Keir Starmer’s new cabinet includes three ministers with links to South Asia, all of whom are new government appointments. The new foreign secretary is David Lammy, 51, who was born in London to Guyanese parents but whose grandmother is Indian, born in Calcutta and sent to Guyana as a slave. His mother came to the UK as part of the Windrush generation.

Lammy, whose commitment to politics has fluctuated in recent years, has just beennamed with his wife, portrait painterNicola Green surprises in second place in the high-end marketTatlerSocial Power Index magazine a rare occurrence for a Labour politician.

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Starmer’s government has done extensive research and preparation on most major domestic issues, but it is weak on foreign affairs and Lammy has been on a steep learning curve since being appointed shadow foreign secretary in 2021. He seems likely to visit India later this month.

He had to reverse his decision to call Donald TrumpHateful of women, sympathetic to neo-Nazissociopath in aTimemagazine article he wrote during the former president's visit to the UK in 2018. Recent trips to the US have included meetings with prominent members of the Republican Party, although there have beenreports indicate that he may not have been appointed foreign minister.>

Shabana Mahmood, 46, whose family roots are in Azad Kashmir (Pakistan), has been appointed Justice Secretary. Raised in Birmingham, she is a lawyer specialising in professional indemnity cases.

Lisa Nandy, 44, whose father is from Calcutta and mother is British, has been appointed Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, where she is likely to be a more vocal defender of the BBC than her Conservative predecessors over the past 14 years.

It appears that what Keir Starmer called tribal politics on Saturday will not be prominent in the new government, even if it continues to thrive in the Conservative Party’s quest for a new leader. Without naming Boris Johnson or his successors, Starmer promised that the government would turn its back on issue selection solely for partisan political reasons.

This article was originally published on the authors' websiteBlog.>

John Elliottis a journalist.>