Speaking to the Guardian, Festus Akinbusoye, who recently co-founded an organization aimed at improving the Conservative party’s “toxic” brand and its relationship with the UK’s African and Caribbean communities, said the party was doing “no is close enough’ to tap into the Black British electorate. “What we’re seeing is a situation where we know from all the evidence that we’ve seen over the last two decades, if not longer, that black communities don’t see the Conservative party as the party of first choice for them,” he said. Akinbusoye, the police and crime commissioner for Bedfordshire. In the 2019 general election, Ipsos Mori estimates that 20% of all Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) voters chose the Conservatives, while Labor won 64% of the BAME vote. “When you look more closely at the values of African and Caribbean communities, they are actually more aligned with conservative values than otherwise. [assumed]Akinbusoye said. “We need to ensure that the party is able to work better with African and Caribbean communities and that African and Caribbean communities have a safe space where they can see other people like them in the Conservative party doing amazing things . ” The 2022 Group, which will be launched this autumn, was set up by senior Tory members including Samuel Kasumu, who quit as campaign adviser to Boris Johnson last year, Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones, also known as the Black Farmer, and Akinbusoye. Although Labor has had senior BAME MPs in shadow cabinet positions, including Diane Abbott, the party has never had a BAME cabinet member in office. And since 2015, when Chuka Umunna abruptly pulled out of the 2015 leadership campaign, the party has not had a serious BAME candidate. In January last year, Kwasi Kwarteng, the business minister, became the first black foreign minister. “Quasi is a very talented person. He is very bright,” Akinbusoye said. “It speaks to the things that I think a lot of people in the Black community will be thinking too. “I am a black man originally from Nigeria, the first black police crime commissioner in the country,” Akinbusoye said. “I was chosen by a generally all-white selection committee. If you look at the line-up of leadership candidates before we get down to the final two, you see the diversity. We already had the first chancellor of Asian origin. We will have the first black chancellor if Quasi becomes chancellor.” Earlier this month Liz Truss, the front-runner for the Conservative party leadership, announced she would cut around £11 billion a year from public service spending if elected to “combat left-wing groupthink in government”. The cut will include scrapping diversity and inclusion roles. In response to Truss’s comments, Akinbusoye said it was “early” to determine the “real value” of the inclusion and diversity roles. Archie Bland and Nimo Omer take you to the top stories and what they mean, free every weekday morning Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising and content sponsored by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. The 2022 Group will include members of parliament, activists, advisers and donors. Senior posts will go to former Tory London mayoral candidate Sean Bailey, education secretary James Cleverley and Tory MP for Maidstone and the Weald Helen Grant. “The Conservative brand is currently toxic and something needs to be done to broaden our appeal if we are to win future elections,” a statement from the group said. “The Conservative party can make progress, it has made progress,” added Akinbusoye. “But it’s not close enough. That’s something that our team, given the caliber of people that are part of it, will be able to bring to the table.”
