Rishi Sunak: How the US shaped Britain's new leader

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IMAGE SOURCE,COURTESY OF STANFORD BUSINESS SCHOOL

Image caption,

Rishi Sunak and Akshata Murty in California

By Natalie Sherman

BBC

Business reporter, New York

Rishi Sunak, the UK's new prime minister, points to his time in the US studying and working as a defining part of his life. So what are his American connections?

The 42-year-old has made the California chapter of his biography a key part of his public persona.

He frequently cites his time there in his 20s and early 30s to burnish his credentials as a business-savvy leader.

"I have lived and worked in California and I actually think it's one of the reasons that I would be good at this job," he told the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg last month while running for the Conservative leadership.

"Because what I will bring to this job is a way of thinking that is different. When we think about growth and in a modern economy, how do you drive growth - you drive it through innovation. Because of my experience I know how to build that type of economy."

Here's a closer look at this period which had such an impact on him.

The 'power couple' on campus

Mr Sunak started his years in America at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business as a Fulbright Scholar, heading to Silicon Valley in 2004 as the internet boom was under way.

The programme, which admits roughly 400 students per year, has a reputation as the most exclusive business degree in the country.

Among the classes Mr Sunak took was "The Paths to Power", intended to help students understand power and how to wield it effectively.

He did not earn any particular academic distinctions and his professor in that class was unable to recollect him - understandably, given he taught 100 students a year.

But a more life-changing landmark in those early US years occurred when he met his wife, Akshata Murty, daughter of the founder of Indian tech firm Infosys.

Classmates at the time have told biographer Michael Ashcroft that they were a "power couple" on campus.

IMAGE SOURCE,HM TREASURY

Image caption,

Rishi Sunak wearing his Stanford sweater

Derrick Bolton, who was assistant dean of admissions from 2001-2016 and remains friendly with the couple, says Mr Sunak entered the programme "very self-assured".

"He knew from a young age that he wanted to make an impact on as many people as possible."

Earlier this summer the couple invited Mr Bolton to Downing Street for tea, where they lived in Mr Sunak's capacity as chancellor. They showed their visitor exhibits on former chancellors and served biscuits marking the Queen's Jubilee.

Mr Bolton, who attended their New York wedding celebration in 2009, said he was surprised they made the time.

"Despite the lofty titles and significant responsibility, they are the same two lovely people they were as students - open and kind and humble and remarkably self-effacing," he said. "They're very low-key, very chill."

Welcome to Santa Monica

After graduating, Mr Sunak took a lucrative job at the London-based hedge fund, TCI Fund Management.

Mr Sunak focused on the US, participating in the firm's bitter 2008 fight with the leaders of America's CSX freight railroad.

Lawyer Marc Weingarten, who worked closely with Mr Sunak at this point, said he stood out as a "sponge for information".

"He was all over it," he said. "They [Mr Sunak and his boss] had studied the industry and CSX in depth for months and their mastery of the industry and CSX was astonishing."

In 2009, in the wake of the financial crisis, top leaders at TCI left to start their own firm Theleme and took Mr Sunak with them.

He became part of a team of two based in Santa Monica, a beach-side city just outside of Los Angeles, and famous as the home of celebrities such as David Beckham and Christian Bale.

IMAGE SOURCE,GOOGLE STREETVIEW

Image caption,

Ocean Avenue, Santa Monica. where the Sunaks lived

He invested in companies such as Rupert Murdoch's News Corp and started to put down ties to the area, joining the board of local Boys & Girls Club, a charity which runs after-school programmes and other activities for needy children.

Aaron Young, who led the organisation at the time, says he was surprised to see Mr Sunak become prime minister but that his ambition was always evident.

"I think he always had aspirations," Mr Young said.

End of the California dream

Mr Sunak ultimately left the US, won a seat in the UK Parliament in 2015 and started his rapid ascent in British politics. But his California years have remained a frequent touchstone.

He has said he tried to introduce a "start-up" mentality while leading the Treasury Department, and credited Stanford for pushing him to shed "incremental" ways of thinking.

The years in the US also informed his decision to back Brexit, he told the BBC in 2019.

"The pace of change is just accelerating around the world - that was my experience being in California," he said. "My general broad view was given the pace of change... being independent and having the flexibility and nimbleness to react would be of enormous value to us."

More on Rishi Sunak and his family

PROFILE: The Star Wars fan turned political force

EXPLAINER: What we know about his family’s wealth

PROFILE: Akshata Murty: Who is Rishi Sunak's wife?

ANALYSIS: Is political chaos the UK's new normal?

Problematic ties

Mr Sunak and his wife continue to maintain a flat in Santa Monica, which they regularly visit. But his ties to the US have at times caused an outcry.

This year, it emerged he had retained his Green Card, giving him the right to live and work in the US as a permanent resident. He returned it in October last year, ahead of his first American trip as a government minister.

The disclosure occurred around the time it was revealed his wife did not pay taxes as a UK resident.

The controversies have been used to raise questions about Mr Sunak's commitment to the country, despite his being born and raised in the UK, says Victoria Honeyman, professor of British politics at the University of Leeds.

"There are legitimate questions - if you are chancellor of the exchequer, should your wife have non-dom status? Should you own a green card? The problem is that it gets tied up with a lot of issues that are not necessarily valid," she says, adding: "I'm not sure a white politician would have to make those kinds of justifications to the same degree."

But such controversies are low-level compared to the economic and political crisis he now faces as prime minister, says Rod Dacombe, director of the Centre for British Politics and Government at King's College London.

"The thing that's going to make or break him isn't the kind of story that he presents or his ties to America.

"It's going to be how he deals with the almost impossible economic situation that he's going to face," he said. "Is it going to be fixed in time for the next election? Probably not."

Rishi Sunak might not be white, but he doesn't represent minority Brits like me

Opinion by Ahmed Twaij - 

LONDON — Seventy-five years after Louis Mountbatten became the last Brit to rule over India, Rishi Sunak, a descendent of Indian immigrants, has walked into Downing Street as the first South Asian British prime minister. Although it is clearly a historic achievement, we should not be fooled into thinking this is a milestone for the U.K.’s minority communities. Sunak, and the ruling Conservative Party he now heads, have been no champions of minority communities like mine.



The third prime minister in only two months, Sunak has been handed the gauntlet of running a country in political and economic turmoil after the disastrous premierships of Liz Truss and Boris Johnson. With a background as a hedge fund manager, he comes into the job with a couple of years of experience as chancellor of the exchequer, the British equivalent of the secretary of the treasury, and several years as a member of Parliament. Before we praise him as the first British person of color to be leader of the nation, we must acknowledge his previous policies have hurt those very populations and his current ones are on track to do no better.

Sunak pointed to his pride in being an immigrant in such a country of opportunity in an early campaign video. It is a welcome sight, as a child of immigrants from Iraq — also a former British colony — to witness the landmark moment of having the first Hindu lead the country, especially after Johnson compared Muslim women to “bankrobbers” and “letterboxes.” But the achievement just underscores what I’ve always felt: Only by conforming to the demands of the pre-existing establishment will race or color no longer matter in Britain.

Just as the election of President Barack Obama was not a harbinger of a post-racial America, having a person of color sit in the highest political office in Britain does not mean we are witnessing the end of racism. In fact, such a politician can often exacerbate racism by implementing harsher policies against their own communities.

Historically, the British would generally select those most assimilating to white culture to be in positions of power above the other locals in their colonies. Often, those natives would then conduct heinous crimes, maybe in hopes of proving their worth to their white superiors. The Indian farmers complicit in the Bengali famine of 1943 are an example.

Today, Sunak and other Conservative Party MPs from minority backgrounds — perhaps in a misguided effort to seek wider validation and appeal to xenophobic followers within the party — have pushed for some of the most racist policies in recent history. While it’s a positive development to see representation in senior politics, this inclusivity should not be contingent on deracinating self-abnegation.

Despite the persistent austerity program of the Conservative government, Sunak managed to push through hundreds of millions of pounds of anti-immigration funds during his time as chancellor. He was part of a government that attempted to implement one of the most racist policies to date, the Nationality and Borders Bill. The legislation included a clause (since removed) that would have allowed the British government, in the name of national security, to revoke without warning the citizenship of anyone it deems has a claim to another nationality.

It is ironic that this is the same political party that unilaterally announced Britain is no longer structurally racist. The Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities, set up by the government in the wake of Black Lives Matter protests, concluded in March 2021 that Britain is not “rigged against ethnic minorities.” But racial disparities in housing, health care, education, policing and others still exist, and denying them is problematic.

Since running for prime minister, Sunak has also vowed to implement a variety of anti-immigration policies that would see the “chance of a better future” he received not extended to others. One scheme called for those seeking asylum in the U.K. to be shipped off to Rwanda. “It is essential that anyone considering trying to sneak into Britain knows that their journey will end in Kigali, not King’s Cross,” Sunak said in a campaign video. In another inhumane plan, Sunak proposed accommodating migrants on ships as opposed to hotels while their asylum applications were processed.

The former chancellor of the exchequer’s economic policies have been no better. Brits from Black and minority ethnic backgrounds have at times been assessed as twice as likely to be among those hardest hit from the Conservative Party’s austerity measures. One report found that the policies have been assessed to have a “disproportionately negative impact” on “certain ethnic groups” by adding layers of taxes unequally affecting communities, a practice Sunak has shown no signs of reversing.

Of course, any cuts in public spending would not affect him. Sunak comes into 10 Downing St. as one of the richest people in Britain, with a net worth over £700 million. From not knowing how to use a credit card to struggling to pay at a gas pump, Sunak has shown his privilege throughout his career in public service. He once famously noted that he didn’t have “working-class friends“ and in another instance proudly announced diverting funds from “deprived urban areas” to more affluent parts of Britain. Yet it is people of color who make up much of the working-class population that Sunak avoids associating with.

Sunak’s policies show that what matters isn’t the skin color of the person in power, but the discrimination that he or she imposes. Although politicians like Sunak come from immigrant communities, their policies have been to those communities’ detriment. Only when politicians’ policies unashamedly support diverse populations can we truly celebrate these leaders’ own diversity.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com