Review finds Britain no longer ‘rigged against ethnic minorities’

BRITAIN is no longer a country where the “system is deliberately rigged against ethnic minorities”, according to a landmark review that has been criticised as divisive.

The Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities said geography, family influence, socio-economic background, culture and religion all impact life chances more than racism, in a report commissioned in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement.

It also criticised the “confusing” way the term “institutional racism” has been applied, saying this should only be used when deep-seated, systemic racism is proved and not as a “catch-all” phrase for any microaggression.

Labour said the report was a “divisive polemic” which has insulted people by downplaying institutional racism, while unions said the report was “deeply cynical” and denied the experiences of black and minority ethnic workers.

In a foreword to the report, commission chairman Dr Tony Sewell said some communities are haunted by historic racism and there was a “reluctance to acknowledge that the UK had become open and fairer”.

He said the review found some evidence of bias, but often it was a perception that the wider society could not be trusted.

Dr Sewell wrote: “Put simply, we no longer see a Britain where the system is deliberately rigged against ethnic minorities. The impediments and disparities do exist, they are varied, and ironically very few of them are directly to do with racism.

“Too often ‘racism’ is the catch-all explanation, and can be simply implicitly accepted rather than explicitly examined.”

The commission said it takes racism seriously and does not deny it is a “real force” in the UK.

But it said there is an “increasingly strident form of anti-racism thinking that seeks to explain all minority disadvantage through the prism of white discrimination”. This, it says, diverts attention from other reasons for disparities of outcome.

The report notes improvements such as increasing diversity in elite profession, a shrinking ethnicity pay gap and that children from many ethnic communities do as well or better than white pupils in compulsory education. It questions whether a narrative claiming that nothing has improved “will achieve anything beyond alienating the decent centre ground”.

It also heralds a new “era of participation”, but said this can only be achieved with the acknowledgement that the UK has undergone a fundamental shift to become a “more open society”.

The 264-page report makes 24 recommendations.

Shadow women and equalities secretary Marsha de Cordova said: “To downplay institutional racism in a pandemic where black, Asian and ethnic minority people have died disproportionately and are now twice as likely to be unemployed is an insult.”

Labour MP David Lammy said the report was an “insult to anybody and everybody across this country who experiences institutional racism”.