Leader creates social justice panel
LONDON — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson says he will establish a commission to look at racial equality in the U.K., a move that comes after two weeks of protests spurred by the death of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis. Opponents accused the Conservative government of opting for talk rather than action.
Writing in Monday’s Daily Telegraph newspaper, Johnson said the body would look at “all aspects of inequality — in employment, in health outcomes, in academic and all other walks of life.”
“What I really want to do as prime minister is change the narrative, so we stop the sense of victimization and discrimination,” he wrote. “We stamp out racism and we start to have a real sense of expectation of success. That’s where I want to get to but it won’t be easy.”
Tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets in hundreds of demonstrations across the U.K. since Floyd was killed on May 25, demanding that Britain confront its own history of imperialism and racial inequality.
Johnson has repeatedly been accused over the years of making racist or offensive statements for which he has declined to apologize. He has called Papua New Guineans cannibals, used the derogatory term “piccaninnies” to refer to members of the Commonwealth and compared Muslim women who wear facecovering veils to “letter boxes.”
Johnson said the new body would investigate “discrimination in the education system, in health, in the criminal justice system,” but gave few other details. His spokesman said it would also look at “wider inequalities” including the poor academic performance of workingclass white boys, and would produce recommendations by the end of the year.
Opposition Labor Party lawmaker David Lammy, author of a governmentcommissioned 2017 report on Britain’s ethnic minorities and criminal justice, accused the government of stalling.
“It feels like yet again in the U.K. we want figures, data, but we don’t want action,” he said. “The time for review is over and the time for action is now.”