Editorial: Humza Yousaf points to racism in Britain while Rishi Sunak points to diversity

​The first minister of Scotland, Humza Yousaf, is a man who seems to see racism everywhere.

​The Scottish Nationalist Party leader in 2020 gave a speech to Scotland’s devolved parliament in which he listed a long list of prominent public positions in the country and then the race of the office holder. White was the race, Mr Yousaf made clear, in post after post.

Now Mr Yousaf has been accused of racism himself, by the owner of X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. Elon Musk wrote “what a blatant racist” in response to an X user who had reposted Mr Yousaf’s speech, and said: “Scotland’s First Minister Humza Yousaf openly despises white people.”

As we report on page six, Mr Yousaf responded, mocking his critics. Posting a moving graphic of a dancing Scottish TV Asian shopkeeper, he said: “Racists foaming at the mouth at my very existence.”

Scotland, like Northern Ireland, is overwhelmingly white – almost 96% of its population (NI is 97%). Therefore, statistically, you would expect 19 out of 20 or even 24 out of 25 jobs in Scotland to be held by white people. Also, given that many of the ethnic minority population will have arrived in Scotland in recent years, often in low-paying jobs, it can take a generation or more for them to rise to the top (in the same way that it typically takes generations for white working class families to do the same).

The glittering success of Rishi Sunak’s cabinet, the most ethnically diverse in British political history, shows that such social mobility is more than possible. That diversity, indeed, gives weight to Mr Sunak’s claim that the UK is one of the most racially integrated societies in the world.

As someone who is so focused on breaking up the UK, Mr Yousaf is unlikely to be accepting that argument any time soon.