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image captionSamuel Kasumu has worked at Downing Street since 2019 but said the tension in government was “at times unbearable”
Downing Street’s senior adviser on ethnic minorities considered resigning over what he called the Conservative Party’s choice to pursue “a politics steeped in division”.
Samuel Kasumu said the tension in government was “at times unbearable”.
He retracted his resignation letter on Thursday night after talks with vaccine minister Nadhim Zahawi.
A No 10 spokesman said the government was the most ethnically diverse in UK history.
In the letter, sent on Thursday to Boris Johnson and seen by the BBC, Mr Kasumu raised concerns about the Conservative Party’s appeal to ethnic minority voters.
He also suggested that equalities minister Kemi Badenoch may have broken the ministerial code when she publicly criticised a journalist for asking why she had not appeared in a social media video featuring black MPs encouraging take-up of the coronavirus vaccine.
Mr Kasumu has been involved in the government’s efforts to overcome vaccine hesitancy in black, Asian and minority ethnic communities and was behind the video. It is understood he decided to stay in government to continue that work.
A Downing Street spokesman declined to comment on individual staff members but said: “This government is committed to inclusion and bringing communities together and is the most ethnically diverse in this country’s history.”
The government had set up a Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities to tackle inequality and discrimination and it is due to report shortly, the spokesman said.
Mr Kasumu’s retracted resignation letter warned that the gains made by the Conservative Party under David Cameron in 2015 with black and Asian voters had been eroded.
Although the Tories had built a coalition of voters to win a majority at the last election, he wrote: “I fear for what may become of the party in the future by choosing to pursue a politics steeped in division.”
Mr Kasumu’s letter said the culture was not conducive to empathy and “the damage that is often caused by our actions is not much considered”.
“As someone that has spent his whole adult life serving others, that tension has been at times unbearable,” he said in the letter.
Mr Kasumu wrote that Ms Badenoch’s actions were “concerning”, after the minister used her Twitter account to publish emails from a journalist requesting comment, calling them “creepy and bizarre” and accusing the news site of “disinformation”.
Labour called for an investigation, saying the reporter – Nadine White from HuffPost – had been subjected to a “torrent of abuse” as a result.
It is understood the Cabinet Office is looking into whether Ms Badenoch broke the ministerial code.
In his resignation letter, Mr Kasumu said that “more concerning than the act, was the lack of response internally”.
“It was not OK or justifiable, but somehow nothing was said. I waited, and waited, for something from the senior leadership team to even point to an expected standard, but it did not materialise,” he wrote.
The adviser also said that he had been proud of his work on the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities, on delivering compensation to the victims of the Windrush scandal and on battling “misinformation and mistrust” about the vaccine rollout.
