Something happened today which, if it were any other country, would be seen to be remarkable: Vaughan Gething, the new First Minister of Wales, became the first black leader of any country in Europe. But having a non-white leader is not remarkable in British politics. The governments of London Scotland, Wales and the UK governments are now led by what no one calls ‘politicians of colour’. In the past few years we have seen a Buddhist Home Secretary (Suella Braverman), a black Foreign Secretary (James Cleverly) and a British Asian (Sajid Javid) rival Churchill for the number of Cabinet jobs held. They are all admired or criticised for a whole bunch of reasons but their skin colour is seldom a point for discussion.

An elephant-headed, four-armed Ganesh idol sits on the Prime Minister’s desk. Rishi Sunak is a practising Hindu, praying regularly with his family with a shrine in No. 10 and candles on the Downing Street door for Diwali. In how many other countries could this be the case and no one care? When Yousaf was elected he released pictures of himself at prayer in Bute House. As one of Britain’s most prominent Muslims his support for the Jewish community after the 7 October attacks didn’t get much attention but, as I have argued, such actions – and the donations this month during Ramadan – are more typical of British Islam than the well-publicised rants from extremists.

Sunak lights candles for Diwali outside Downing Street. (Credit: No. 10 Flickr)

We live in difficult times. The 7 October atrocities were intended to polarise opinion in the Middle East and reverse what had been Arab-Israel rapprochement under the Abraham Accords. But it had the side-effect of polarising society in the West, reviving anti-Semitism and raising concerns about immigration – even if the idiots who make the headlines are British-born. It’s true that the UK government struggled to calibrate post-Brexit immigration powers, letting in far more than was intended. But it’s now tightening, and overall Britain stands as the world’s most successful multi-faith democracy.

It would be a shame to lose sight of the fact that, overall, Britain has been strengthened by people like the Sunak family, by Priti Patel’s parents who fled Idi Amin, by Vaughan Gething’s parents when they swapped Zambia for somewhere colder. One in five British workers, now, were born overseas: a higher ratio than even America. And if you want to judge how well we do integration, look at university admissions or who gets elected, whether it’s running London or winning Bake Off. Brexit meant the EU lost one of its members, but the European parliament lost a fifth of its ethnic minority politicians. Not that this was notable, or even discussed, in the general debate.

Gething was born in Zambia 1974 to a white Welsh father (a vet from Ogmore-on-Sea) and Zambian mother and they moved to Wales when he was four. He went to school in Dorset, then back to Wales for university (Aberystwyth and Cardiff) before joining the Welsh Assembly in its early years as a researcher. After a spell as a lawyer, he became the only non-white member of the 60-strong Welsh assembly – but that was proportional for a country where about 2 per cent are black. He is not a great one for identity politics. ‘I get really annoyed about the business about whether you’re a token or not; it should be about whether you’re good enough or not,’ he once told the Guardian. When asked why he is the first black man to run the TUC in Wales, he replied that the others were not good enough.

David Cameron once claimed that “if you’re a young black man, you’re more likely to be in a prison cell than studying at a top university.” It was a falsehood designed to portray the Tories as angry about injustice – so they concocted the injustice. The strategy, continued by Theresa May, was to highlight problems (real or imagined) rather then emphasise progress. What I thought was particularly pernicious about that was that a young black mum (or pupil) reading Cameron’s nonsense (which splashed the Sunday Times) might think it was true and that the odds are somehow stacked against ethnic minorities in this country. It’s more accurate to say, as Kemi Badenoch does, that this is the best country in the world to be young, gifted and black.

‘To be a figure where you’re generally accepted for who and what you are: that’s where I’d want to be’, Gething said once. His record may not necessarily be not be to his advantage (Ross Clark looks at his role in lockdowns here) but that – and not his parentage – is what the debate will be about. ‘It was, in one sense, a wonderful thing about our country that I was the first British Asian PM,’ Sunak once told The Spectator. ‘But it’s also wonderful that it’s not that big a deal. And that is actually what’s amazing about our country.’ Sunak’s election was a moment to reflect upon that, however briefly. Gething’s election today is another.