CULTURE WAR OVER RACE REPORT
Left in fury as key study finds ‘no evidence of institutional racism in UK’
AN EXTRAORDINARY row broke out last night over a landmark report into the state of race relations in Britain.
The study, which was months in the making and produced by a group of 12 experts – only one of whom was white – concluded that there was no evidence of institutional racism in this country.
Its findings were branded as a ‘whitewash’ by the Left last night, but they were welcomed by some campaigners.
Duwayne Brooks, a friend of Stephen Lawrence, said he agreed that not all disparities in the UK were caused by racism.
The activist told Times Radio: ‘What the report is doing is comparing life for the ethnic minorities in Britain, in comparison to the European countries, where life would be much, much worse than how it is today.’
He added: ‘It’s not as simple to just say that the black people of Britain cannot get jobs because they’re black. And that’s what people want the report to say.’
Baroness Kishwer Falkner, chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, added: ‘This report rightly identifies the varied causes of disparities and by making recommendations to address them gives the Government the opportunity to design policy targeting the sources of inequality.
The Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities report, commissioned by the Prime Minister after last year’s Black Lives Matter protests, said Britain was no longer a country where the ‘system is deliberately rigged against ethnic minorities’.
The report said factors such as geography, family influence, socio- economic background, culture and religion all impacted life chances more than racism, and concluded the UK was a ‘beacon’ to the world as a successful multi-ethnic nation which displayed much more tolerance than its neighbours.
But unions said the report denied the experiences of black and minority ethnic workers. Labour justice spokesman David Lammy said black Britons were being ‘ gaslighted’ and called the report an insult to anyone in Britain who had experienced structural racism.
The report’s authors were also accused of trying to put a ‘positive spin on slavery’ after they called on schools to use history lessons to ‘tell the multiple, nuanced stories of the contributions made by different groups that have made this country the one it is today’.
In his foreword, commission chairman Tony Sewell said there was a new story to be told about the ‘slave period’ and about how ‘culturally African people transformed themselves into a remodelled African/Britain’.
But Halima Begum, chief executive of the Runnymede Trust, a race equality think-tank, said: ‘I’m absolutely flabbergasted to see the slave trade apparently redefined as “the Caribbean Experience”; as though it’s something Thomas Cook should be selling – a one-way shackled cruise to purgatory. The cultural deafness of this report is only going to become clearer in the coming days and weeks.’
Dr Sewell, who insisted that the commission simply hadn’t found evidence of institutional racism in Britain, said some communities were 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.
NHS Providers said it disagreed with the report’s conclusions and said there was ‘clear and unmistakable’ evidence that NHS ethnic minority staff had worse experiences and faced more barriers than white counterparts.
Sabby Dhalu, of Stand Up To Racism, said: ‘Suggesting Britain should be regarded as a “model for other white-majority countries” is an insult to all those who lost their lives due to racism.’
But Chancellor Rishi Sunak said progress had been made in tackling racism, telling ITV’s Peston: ‘If
I think about the things that happened to me when I was a kid, I can’t imagine those things happening to me now.’
The 264-page report also called on ministers to tackle online abuse, lengthen the school day to help disadvantaged pupils, force police to switch on body cameras during stop-and-search encounters, and establish an independent body to target health disparities. The Prime Minister said the Government will consider the recommendations.
TWENTY-TWO years ago, Sir William Macpherson, in his report into the Stephen Lawrence murder, coined a phrase: ‘Institutional racism.’
Intended to condemn the police, the words have since been exploited by the identity-obsessed Left to warp any honest discussion on race relations. Yesterday the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities blasted common sense into the debate.
Chaired by black charity boss Dr Tony Sewell, its bold and nuanced report upends the toxic notion, fuelled by a grievancemongering race relations industry, that Britain is a seething nest of bigotry.
Of course, racism is still a problem. Where it exists it must be stamped out, not swept under the carpet. But real disadvantage, the audit found, has more to do with family, economic background and culture and less to do with skin colour.
Unsurprisingly, the ‘woke’ Left (for whom the left-behind white working classes are not a trendy cause) responded with fury, raging at Dr Sewell for bravely challenging their pernicious orthodoxies.
But let’s be frank: Even if the report had depicted the UK as a racist hellhole, the liberal ideologues still wouldn’t be happy.
For the PM, this is a golden opportunity to vanquish poisonous identity politics and tackle racial inequality – wherever and, crucially, whomever it blights.