London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Oct 30, 2025

Johnson’s former race adviser accuses Tories of inflaming culture wars

Johnson’s former race adviser accuses Tories of inflaming culture wars

Exploiting division for electoral gain could spark another Stephen Lawrence or Jo Cox tragedy, Samuel Kasumu warns
Boris Johnson’s former race adviser has warned of another Stephen Lawrence or Jo Cox tragedy if members of the government continue to inflame the culture wars gripping parts of the nation.

Speaking publicly for the first time since he resigned two months ago, Samuel Kasumu said he feared there were some in government pursuing a strategy of exploiting division for electoral gain that could result in severe consequences for the country.

“There are some people in the government who feel like the right way to win is to pick a fight on the culture war and to exploit division,” he told the Guardian in an interview. “I worry about that. It seems like people have very short memories, and they’ve already forgotten Jo Cox.”

The man who killed her, he believes, was potentially radicalised and worked into a “frenzy” by the culture war narratives in certain newspapers and pushed by media commentators.

“If I was going to go to William Hill today and place a bet on what the most likely option is, I’d probably say a Jo Cox, a Stephen Lawrence, a Windrush scandal is where we’re headed if you don’t find a way to overcome this cultural moment. I feel like the government must be the ones to try to help drive that change.”

Kasumu’s stark intervention follows the leaking of his resignation letter in February, which accused the Conservatives of pursuing a “politics steeped in division”. He was persuaded to remain in place by Nadhim Zahawi, the vaccines minister, to continue his work on overcoming hesitancy to the Covid-19 jab among certain communities.

The resignation named Kemi Badenoch, the equalities minister, and noted she may have broken the ministerial code when she accused a young, black journalist, Nadine White, then working for HuffPost, of “creepy and bizarre” behaviour in a Twitter thread for asking questions about a Covid vaccines video. The journalist received a torrent of abuse as a result, according to her employer, and led to an alert about the risk to media freedom being registered with the Council of Europe.

“There’s an assumption that I have issues with Kemi. I don’t have any personal issues with her,” Kasumu said. “But when that happened, a lot of things went through my mind. I thought to myself, if that young journalist was my sister, or relative of mine, how would I feel about a minister responding to her in such a way?

“I thought, if the journalist was Andrew Neil, or Laura Kuenssberg, or Robert Peston, would the minister have responded in the same way? Were the minister’s actions distracting people from very important public health messages? It just led me to the conclusion that it was completely unacceptable.”

In April, Kasumu resigned in the middle of the furore of the government’s racial disparity report, which drew sharp criticism from a range of individuals, including Simon Woolley and Doreen Lawrence, who said it would allow racism to flourish.

Kasumu refused to be drawn into controversy around the report, though he did tweet that he had “so many emotions” reading the report and that he was in “total shock”.

He acknowledged he was the point man for the commission when it was first announced and was heavily involved in the recruitment of commissioners.

He said Tony Sewell’s appointment as chairman of the commission drew backlash, but he insists he should have been on the commission, describing him as a good man who has helped change the life direction of thousands of young people. He also said he told colleagues that they owed Sewell a duty of care to protect him.

He also described the prime minister, Boris Johnson, as a liberally minded individual and said there was a disconnect between Johnson and what people have coined as “Johnsonism”. “When I think about my interactions with the prime minister, he was always very supportive about things that I wanted to do. And I would actually go further and say that he was often more keen for me to go further, to be even more ambitious.”

A No 10 spokesperson said: “The entirety of the UK government is focused on defeating this pandemic and building back fairer for everyone. That is our priority.

“The minister for women and equalities clearly set out in her ‘fight for fairness’ speech the government’s plans for an evidence-based equality agenda in the UK.

“This includes racial equality, which is why the prime minister set up the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities and, following their detailed report, the government will shortly respond to their recommendations”.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
UK and Vietnam Sign Landmark Migration Deal to Fast-Track Returns of Irregular Arrivals
UK Drug-Pricing Overhaul Essential for Life-Sciences Ambition, Says GSK Chief
Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie Temporarily Leave the UK Amid Their Parents’ Royal Fallout
UK Weighs Early End to Oil and Gas Windfall Tax as Reeves Seeks Investment Commitments
UK Retail Inflation Slows as Shop Prices Fall for First Time Since Spring
Next Raises Full-Year Profit Guidance After Strong Third-Quarter Performance
Reform UK’s Lee Anderson Admits to 'Gaming' Benefits System While Advocating Crackdown
United States and South Korea Conclude Major Trade Accord Worth $350 Billion
Hurricane Melissa Strikes Cuba After Devastating Jamaica With Record Winds
Vice President Vance to Headline Turning Point USA Campus Event at Ole Miss
U.S. Targets Maritime Narco-Routes While Border Pressure to Mexico Remains Limited
Bill Gates at 70: “I Have a Real Fear of Artificial Intelligence – and Also Regret”
Elon Musk Unveils Grokipedia: An AI-Driven Alternative to Wikipedia
Saudi Arabia Unveils Vision for First-Ever "Sky Stadium" Suspended Over Desert Floor
Amazon Announces 14 000 Corporate Job Cuts as AI Investment Accelerates
UK Shop Prices Fall for First Time Since March, Food Leads the Decline
London Stock Exchange Group ADR (LNSTY) Earns Zacks Rank #1 Upgrade on Rising Earnings Outlook
Soap legend Tony Adams, long-time star of Crossroads, dies at 84
Rachel Reeves Signals Tax Increases Ahead of November Budget Amid £20-50 Billion Fiscal Gap
NatWest Past Gains of 314% Spotlight Opportunity — But Some Key Risks Remain
UK Launches ‘Golden Age’ of Nuclear with £38 Billion Sizewell C Approval
UK Announces £1.08 Billion Budget for Offshore Wind Auction to Boost 2030 Capacity
UK Seeks Steel Alliance with EU and US to Counter China’s Over-Capacity
UK Struggles to Balance China as Both Strategic Threat and Valued Trading Partner
Argentina’s Markets Surge as Milei’s Party Secures Major Win
British Journalist Sami Hamdi Detained by U.S. Authorities After Visa Revocation Amid Israel-Gaza Commentary
King Charles Unveils UK’s First LGBT+ Armed Forces Memorial at National Memorial Arboretum
At ninety-two and re-elected: Paul Biya secures eighth term in Cameroon amid unrest
Racist Incidents Against UK Nurses Surge by 55%
UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves Cites Shared Concerns With Trump Administration as Foundation for Early US-UK Trade Deal
Essentra plc: A Closer Look at a UK ‘Penny Stock’ Opportunity Amid Market Weakness
U.S. and China Near Deal to Avert Rare-Earth Export Controls Ahead of Trump-Xi Summit
Justin time: Justin Herbert Shields Madison Beer with Impressive Reflex at Lakers Game
Russia’s President Putin Declares Burevestnik Nuclear Cruise Missile Ready for Deployment
Giuffre’s Memoir Alleges Maxwell Claimed Sexual Act with Clooney
House Republicans Move to Strip NYC Mayoral Front-Runner Zohran Mamdani of U.S. Citizenship
Record-High Spoiled Ballots Signal Voter Discontent in Ireland’s 2025 Presidential Election
Philippines’ Taal Volcano Erupts Overnight with 2.4 km Ash Plume
Albania’s Virtual AI 'Minister' Diella Set to 'Birth' Eighty-Three Digital Assistants for MPs
Tesla Unveils Vision for Optimus V3 as ‘Biggest Product of All Time’, Including Surgical Capabilities
Francis Ford Coppola Auctions Luxury Watches After Self-Financed Film Flop
Convicted Sex Offender Mistakenly Freed by UK Prison Service Arrested in London
United States and China Begin Constructive Trade Negotiations Ahead of Trump–Xi Summit
U.S. Treasury Sanctions Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro over Drug-Trafficking Allegations
Miss USA Crowns Nebraska’s Audrey Eckert Amid Leadership Overhaul
‘I Am Not Done’: Kamala Harris Signals Possible 2028 White House Run
NBA Faces Integrity Crisis After Mass Arrests in Gambling Scandal
Swift Heist at the Louvre Sees Eight French Crown Jewels Stolen in Under Seven Minutes
U.S. Halts Trade Talks with Canada After Ontario Ad Using Reagan Voice Triggers Diplomatic Fallout
Microsoft AI CEO: ‘We’re making an AI that you can trust your kids to use’ — but can Microsoft rebuild its own trust before fixing the industry’s?
×