When I served in government, ethnic minorities were expected to endure indignities

I have lost count of the number of times Sajid Javid, the Conservative health secretary, is referred to as Sadiq Khan, the Labour mayor of London, writes Salma Shah

The prime minister has ordered an inquiry into Nusrat Ghani’s ‘Muslimness’ sacking claims (via Reuters)

Ethnic minority MPs still face prejudice. Direct racism in and around the wider Westminster community has mostly disappeared but a more insidious intolerance exists at a low level, a repetitive din in the background of the political village. We may not care to admit it but ethnic minorities are held to a different standard and are expected to endure indignities others are not.

Former transport minister Nusrat Ghani revealed this week that she’d been told her “Muslimness” was an issue and was the reason behind her removal from office because it made some people “uncomfortable”. The contents of the conversation with Ghani and the chief whip Mark Spencer is refuted by him, but the suggestion alone is damaging and it’s right that a proper inquiry will take place to establish the facts.

This is not about the Conservative Party and it’s a false narrative if it’s presented as such. Indeed, the party has an amazing record of recruiting talent that reflects modern Britain. Give David Cameron credit where it’s due, he saw we had a problem and thanks to those efforts we can boast an array of ethnic minority talent at the top table, but lingering issues remain.

Minority MPs endure humiliations that they are expected to brush off, but anyone would find these humiliations rude. I have lost count of the number of times Sajid Javid, the Conservative health secretary, is referred to as Sadiq Khan, the Labour mayor of London, and vice versa. They share no physical traits whatsoever, their only commonality is the fact they both have Pakistani heritage and are both sons of bus drivers. Their differences are far more striking in terms of their history and their outlooks, but the ease with which they are mistaken is pure laziness. It’s a credit to them that they don’t take it seriously and can even make jokes about it, but it’s no less unfair and is an offence committed by people across the political divide.

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While serving in government I recall a particularly infuriating episode at a large business gathering. While being introduced, Sajid Javid, who was business secretary at the time, was subjected to at least 14 iterations of his name before he was invited on stage to make his speech. The chairman of this organisation had not bothered to learn his name and was unperturbed that he’d made a dog’s dinner of it in front of hundreds of foreign investors to the UK. The boss never mentioned it, but I felt stung by the dismissiveness.

Once in high office as a minority, there is an ever-present danger of being tarred by your identity on policy choices too. Why should choices on immigration or integration be solely subject to your identity? Yes, our backgrounds shape our beliefs but facts and briefings and political realities do too. Take Priti Patel, she’s in an ever losing battle, either she’s too hardline or too soft and you only need to look at her Twitter timeline to see the kind of bile she’s subjected to with the insinuation that she is somehow different. It’s fine not to agree with her but she’s being judged on her background, which is just irrelevant.

We have come a long way, the story of our representation in high office is one we can be proud of, indeed in comparison to any other European country we have been outstanding. The feeling that certain jobs are “not for people like us” has been demolished, so where we see examples of people being “othered” or singled out for things that they cannot help, we have to act. However painful it is to do so.

Salma Shah was special adviser to Sajid Javid, from 2018 to 2019. She was also a special adviser at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport