Who will stand up for those Britain forgot?

THIS paper applauds Theresa May’s motive for introducing an audit to expose how different racial groups are treated in areas such as health, education, employment and criminal justice.

As she puts it: ‘I absolutely passionately believe that how far you go in life should be about your talents and your hard work and nothing else.’

But while her intentions are beyond reproach, we worry whether the jumble of statistics on her ‘ethnicity facts and figures’ website will achieve them.

Let us first say, loud and clear, that Britain is one the most racially tolerant countries on Earth – far more so than nations such as France, where anti- Semitism and Islamophobia remain rife. This owes much less to government initiatives than to a deep-rooted tradition of fair- mindedness, stretching back centuries and growing stronger with each succeeding generation.

Yet in recent years, British tolerance has come under immense strain – and not just from unprecedented immigration (only yesterday, the former head of immigration enforcement said there are probably more than a million foreigners here illegally).

It is under strain, too, from a growing perception that today’s politicians are more concerned with the interests of minorities than with those of the majority. And the terrible irony is that it’s the majority who are now suffering.

For one of the most striking findings of the audit is that poor white pupils lag far behind every other group in attainment at school.

As Trevor Phillips argues powerfully on this page, there’s been evidence for years that working-class white boys are now at the bottom of the educational ladder, with profoundly disturbing implications for the future of this country.

But if you’re hoping the audit will focus help on this overlooked group, don’t hold your breath. For there is something in it to feed every grievance, real or imagined, felt by members of every ethnic minority.

What, for example, are we to make of the finding that Pakistani and Bangladeshi workers receive the lowest hourly pay, while Indians receive the highest?

It is in this welter of often confusing and contradictory information that the plight of Britain’s indigenous working class could get lost once again.

Doubtless the audit is well intentioned. But our fear is that it will be mishandled by politically correct officials and exploited by victimhood lobbyists. Thus it will divert attention from the underperformance of an unfashionable section of society – the working-class white youths Britain forgot.