King Charles III formally appointed the Southampton born, Rishi Sunak as the first Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Sunak is not just the youngest prime minister in 200 years but also the first prime minister of Indian descent in the UK. A day after being chosen as the new leader of the Conservative Party in a historic leadership contest, 42-year-old Sunak officially assumed office as Britain’s first prime minister of Indian descent during a meeting with King Charles III on Tuesday.
His Ethnicity
Having immigrated to Britain from East Africa in the 1960s, Sunak’s parents are of Indian descent. After receiving a Winchester College education, he went on to complete an MBA at Stanford University in California as a FScholar and a degree in philosophy, politics, and economics (PPE) at Lincoln College, Oxford. He met Akshata Murty, the future wife of N. R. Narayana Murthy, the wealthy Indian entrepreneur who founded Infosys, while they were both students at Stanford.
Due to his rich origins, questions and speculations sprouted out regarding his ethnicity which soon turned into rumours regarding his legitimacy to the position. Though not unexpected, the rumours have gone unanswered and are soon to die down as he takes up his role as Prime Minister in the days to come.
His Political Ideology
Regarding his political stance, Rishi is an avid believer and openly supports extremism as he urges the people to redefine and broaden their views about said notion. Sunak voted to leave the EU in the June 2016 referendum. In support of the creation of free ports following Brexit, he wrote a report for the Centre for Policy Studies that year. The year after that, he advocated for the development of a retail bond market for small and medium-sized businesses in another report.
With things at a rise and being made responsible to pick up where Truss left off will not be an easy task. Only time will tell as we witness Sunak hold and progress his position in-office.
