The wedding was a triumph for love – not diversity
One of the striking things about Harry and Meghan’s wedding was the way the liberal Left — who normally flaunt their republican credentials — spent most of the day congratulating themselves on what a triumph for racial diversity it all was.
Indeed, much of the BBC coverage seemed to focus on little else. The unspoken implication of all this was, of course, that most Brits are somehow closet racists.
The truth is that none of the ordinary people who flocked to Windsor — nor the tens of thousands who hosted parties across the country — could give a flying fig about Meghan’s ethnic background, as long as she makes our beloved Harry happy.
This notion that Britain is a horribly racist society — pushed hard for political gain by elements of the Labour Party in the wake of Grenfell and the Windrush scandal — has been really getting my goat lately.
As someone who grew up abroad, I can tell you for certain that compared to most european countries, Britain is practically colour-blind.
Of course, there are always idiots and bigots — and, of course, there are still problems around race, not least the horrifying number of young black men dying on our streets.
But, for the most part, the Brits are an instinctively inclusive lot.
In Italy, where I spent my younger years, vast numbers of Italians are unbelievably racist, especially towards people from Africa, but also towards eastern europeans.
The Lega nord party — which despises not only foreigners but also fellow Italians south of Rome (favourite chant: ‘Africa has monkeys, Italy has neapolitans’) — is rampant in the hard-hit former industrial cities of the north; and significantly, one of the first promises of the newly formed coalition government is to deport 500,000 illegal immigrants.
non-metropolitan areas of France and large swathes of Spain are not much different to the Italians in their hostility to anyone with black or brown skin. The French just hide it better.
In Britain, by contrast, we don’t merely embrace other cultures, we go out of our way to make them feel welcome. Tolerance and understanding are not just fine words, they are everyday facts of modern British life.
Try finding a senior Asian politician like Sajid Javid in Italy’s parliament or a brilliant black actor like Idris elba on primetime TV. People like that simply don’t exist in swathes of europe, where to be white (and male, but that’s another matter) still means ruthlessly holding the balance of power.
Hence the bitter irony of the Un’s ‘Special Rapporteur on racism’, Tendayi Achiume, concluding — after just 11 days in the UK, speaking exclusively to pressure groups with obvious vested interests — that racism in Britain had been ‘normalised’ since Brexit.
What insulting nonsense. Does that remotely chime with anything you’ve seen or experienced? The fact is most EU countries treat foreign immigrants like dirt compared to the UK.
AND it is so typical of blinkered liberal prejudice in this country to conflate a desire to limit mass immigration numbers with a prejudicial dislike of immigrants. The two are simply not the same thing.
In fact, the experience of Italy, which has seen unprecedented numbers of displaced people arriving from Africa, would indicate that uncontrolled immigration actually aggravates racial tensions.
If we ever leave the EU, we will manage that influx in a way that doesn’t create cultural divisions. But if this false assumption about racist Britain makes me furious, it must be more galling for ethnic minorities.
For it reveals just how little the BBC and the Left really think of black people that for a woman of colour to join the ranks of the royals should be interpreted as such an outstanding achievement. How inherently prejudiced is that? And how nauseatingly patronising.
Of course, it’s great that Meghan has married Harry: she’s beautiful, clever and they clearly adore each other.
But Meghan is not defined by her race, but by what she has achieved in life. For me — as for most people in this country — the colour of her skin is no more relevant than her shoe size.