London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Sep 18, 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
US Tech Giants Pledge Billions to UK AI Infrastructure Following Starmer's Call
Saudi Arabia cracks down on music ‘lounges’ after conservative backlash
DeepMind and OpenAI Achieve Gold at ‘Coding Olympics’ in AI Milestone
SEC Allows Public Companies to Block Investors from Class-Action Lawsuits
Saudi Arabia Signs ‘Strategic Mutual Defence’ Pact with Pakistan, Marking First Arab State to Gain Indirect Access to Nuclear Strike Capabilities in the Region
Federal Reserve Cuts Rates by Quarter Point and Signals More to Come
Effective and Impressive Generation Z Protest: Images from the Riots in Nepal
European manufacturers against ban on polluting cars: "The industry may collapse"
Sam Altman sells the 'Wedding Estate' in Hawaii for 49 million dollars
Trump: Cancel quarterly company reports and settle for reporting once every six months
Turkish car manufacturer Togg Enters German Market with 5-Star Electric Sedan and SUV to Challenge European EV Brands
US Launches New Pilot Program to Accelerate eVTOL Air Taxi Deployment
Christian Brueckner Released from German Prison after Serving Unrelated Sentence
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
Hong Kong Industry Group Calls for HK$20 Billion Support Fund to Ease Property Market Stress
Joe Biden’s Post-Presidency Speaking Fees Face Weak Demand amid Corporate Reluctance
Charlie Kirk's murder will break the left's hateful cancel tactics
Kash Patel erupts at ‘buffoon’ Sen. Adam Schiff over Russiagate: ‘You are the biggest fraud’
Homeland Security says Emmy speech ‘fanning the flames of hatred’ after Einbinder’s ‘F— ICE’ remark
Charlie Kirk’s Alleged Assassin Tyler Robinson Faces Death Penalty as Charges Formally Announced
Actor, director, environmentalist Robert Redford dies at 89
The conservative right spreads westward: a huge achievement for 'Alternative for Germany' in local elections
JD Vance Says There Is “No Unity” with Those Who Celebrate Charlie Kirk’s Killing, and he is right!
Trump sues the 'New York Times' for an astronomical sum of 15 billion dollars
Florida Hospital Welcomes Its Largest-Ever Baby: Annan, Nearly Fourteen Pounds at Birth
U.S. and Britain Poised to Finalize Over $10 Billion in High-Tech, Nuclear and Defense Deals During Trump State Visit
China Finds Nvidia Violated Antitrust Laws in Mellanox Deal, Deepens Trade Tensions with US
US Air Force Begins Modifications on Qatar-Donated Jet Amid Plans to Use It as Air Force One
Pope Leo Warns of Societal Crisis Over Mega-CEO Pay, Citing Tesla’s Proposed Trillion-Dollar Package
Poland Green-Lights NATO Deployment in Response to Major Russian Drone Incursion
Elon Musk Retakes Lead as World’s Richest After Brief Ellison Surge
U.S. and China Agree on Framework to Shift TikTok to American Ownership
London Daily Podcast: London Massive Pro Democracy Rally, Musk Support, UK Economic Data and Premier League Results Mark Eventful Weekend
This Week in AI: Meta’s Superintelligence Push, xAI’s Ten Billion-Dollar Raise, Genesis AI’s Robotics Ambitions, Microsoft Restructuring, Amazon’s Million-Robot Milestone, and Google’s AlphaGenome Update
Le Pen Tightens the Pressure on Macron as France Edges Toward Political Breakdown
Musk calls for new UK government at huge pro-democracy rally in London, but Britons have been brainwashed to obey instead of fighting for their human rights
Elon Musk responds to post calling for the murder of Erika Kirk, widow of Charlie Kirk: 'Either we fight back or they will kill us'
Czech Republic signs €1.34 billion contract for Leopard 2A8 main battle tanks with delivery from 2028
USA: Office Depot Employees Refused to Print Poster in Memory of Charlie Kirk – and Were Fired
Proposed U.S. Bill Would Allow Civil Suits Against Judges Who Release Repeat Violent Offenders
Penske Media Sues Google Over “AI Overviews,” Claiming It Uses Journalism Without Consent and Destroys Traffic
Indian Student Engineers Propose “Project REBIRTH” to Protect Aircraft from Crashes Using AI, Airbags and Smart Materials
French Debt Downgrade Piles Pressure on Macron’s New Prime Minister
US and UK Near Tech, Nuclear and Whisky Deals Ahead of Trump Trip
One in Three Europeans Now Uses TikTok, According to the Chinese Tech Giant
Could AI Nursing Robots Help Healthcare Staffing Shortages?
NATO Deploys ‘Eastern Sentry’ After Russian Drones Violate Polish Airspace
Anesthesiologist Left Operation Mid-Surgery to Have Sex with Nurse
Tens of Thousands of Young Chinese Get Up Every Morning and Go to Work Where They Do Nothing
×