“So she was keen for us to try to do some extra drama."
Rishi Sunak opened up about the racism he experienced as a child and revealed that his parents wanted him to speak without an accent to “fit in”.
He said: “You are conscious of being different.
“It’s hard not to be, right, and obviously I experienced racism as a kid.”
The Prime Minister recalled the pain of hearing racist remarks directed at his younger brother and sister, adding that racism “stings” and “hurts in a way that other things don’t”.
Mr Sunak believes his experience would not happen to his children now.
Mr Sunak’s parents were born in East Africa and of Punjabi descent. He grew up in Southampton and is the eldest of three children.
Discussing his Indian heritage, Rishi Sunak said his parents were keen for him and his siblings to “fit in and not for it to be, in any way, shape or form, a barrier”.
As a result, his mother became “obsessed” with how her children spoke.
Rishi Sunak told The Times: “One of the things my mum was obsessed with was that we didn’t speak with accents and we would speak properly.
“So she was keen for us to try to do some extra drama.
“I think any form of racism is simply unacceptable.”
Mr Sunak added that when he speaks to world leaders, “most people look to the UK as an example of how to get this right”.
He admitted that he never dreamed of leading the UK when he was younger and this was partially due to the lack of ethnic minority “role models” in politics at the time.
Mr Sunak attended a preparatory school in Romsey, near Southampton.
He then went to the prestigious private school Winchester College, where he became headboy.
Since leaving Winchester, Mr Sunak remained loyal to his former school and in 2022, it was revealed that he and his wife Akshata Murty had donated more than £100,000 to the school.
Mr Sunak was “hugely aware” of the privilege that attending the school had given him relative to others, explaining that his parents had taken extra work and loans to fund his tuition there.
He added: “That’s what Indian families do.”
Mr Sunak also said his friends at the time would have described him as a “geek” rather than as “naughty”.
Apart from his childhood, the Prime Minister also discussed the divisions over illegal immigration that have riven the Conservative Party in recent months.
He claimed that the majority of the Party backed his policy to deport illegal migrants to Rwanda and added that the issue arose ‘passions because people are frustrated.’