The Empire Strikes Back! Indian-descent Rishi Sunak becomes UK PM on second try (IANS Profile)

More than democracy's diversity, it is colonialism's reverse sweep. The United Kingdom's Conservative Party, once intricately intertwined with the Empire, imperialism, and British national identity, had contenders from former colonies in Asia and Africa fight to lead it after Boris Johnson stepped down. And after an abortive first try, the son of Indian-descent immigrants from British East Africa finally made it to its top, to become the country's first Asian Prime Minister.

Rishi Sunak, UK's former Chancellor of the Exchequer, or Finance Minister, whose sudden resignation set in motion the circumstances that forced an intransigent Johnson to finally bow out earlier this year, was initially leading in the race to be his successor.

The race had a ethnically diverse list of candidates British Pakistani ministers Sajid Javid and Rehman Chishti, Sunak's Iraqi Kurd-born successor Nadhim Zahawi, Attorney General Suella Braverman, whose family's roots are in Goa, and Nigerian-origin former minister Kemi Badenoch.

Sunak and Braverman's fellow Indian-origin Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, chose to sit it out.

Javid and Chishti failed to get enough traction to even figure in the race, Zahawi bowed out after the first round, and Braverman after the second, leaving Sunak and Badenoch to contend against Trade Minister Penny Mordaunt, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, and Tom Tugendhat, the backbench MP, who happens to be half-French.

Ultimately, Sunak and Truss were the final contenders and she won after the race went to Conservative members across the country.

However, the Truss government soon imploded - and immigrants were behind its

After she removed Chancellor of Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng

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