Baroness Warsi demoted

For the first time in 10 years the Cabinet of Her Majesty’s Government will be all white. The removal of the only BME Cabinet member, the former Conservative Party Co-Chair, Sayeeda Warsi leaves David Cameron with a political top table looking distinctly unprogressive. Overall the number of women in Cameron’s Cabinet has fallen from five to four.

In many respects the Prime Minister, who has always been a very keen supporter of his first female Muslim Cabinet member, has capitulated to the growing chorus of Conservative detractors who have argued that Warsi should go.

With political manoeuvring never too far away from these decisions, it would seem that the Prime Minister has sought to appease Warsi’s detractors rather than focus on winning the hearts and minds of BME voters, who the Conservatives concede could decide whether or not they win the next General election of not.

For many BME communities Warsi represented a clear break with the dominant archetypal Conservative: male, white and privileged. Coming from the North, being a Muslim, a woman and working class, Warsi spoke to a new aspirational audience who argued that with hard work and endeavour you could reach high office. With Warsi gone and no obvious replacement Cameron’s meritocratic vision is in a much poorer place.

Simon Woolley