Britain’s ethnic bias revealed

by Lauren Codling

BEING male, a Leave voter and a Conservative party supporter are all associated with a higher possibility of an individual labelling themselves as “racially prejudiced”, new research has found.

The study, released by the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen), found that British men who support the Conservative party and who voted leave in the EU referendum are more likely to describe themselves as “racially prejudiced”.

Robert Ford, professor of political sciences at the University of Manchester, told Eastern Eye on Tuesday (3) that some Leave voters could see the vote as an endorsement of their own political agendas.

“Are more people now hostile against minorities than were before, or are the majority of people who were always hostile towards these groups behaving worse because they see the Brexit vote as kind of legitimate in their world view?” Ford asked.

He added that this has created a problem that must be emphasised in post-Brexit debates to show the UK is a “tolerant society where this behaviour is not acceptable and [the referendum] did not change that”.

Another finding of the report showed 26 per cent of Britons are at least “a little prejudiced”.

Of the 2,220 people surveyed, 18 per cent concurred that “some races or ethnic groups

were born less intelligent” and 44 per cent believed some races or ethnic groups were “born harder working”.

Thirty-three per cent of Conservatives admitted racial prejudice while 20 per cent of Liberal Democrats and 18 per cent of Labour supporters recognised their prejudice. Twenty-eight per cent of those self-identifying as racially prejudiced backed a different party.

Liberal Democrat shadow secretary for equalities, Baroness Burt, said the findings were

“worrying” and highlighted the prejudice that continues to exist “despite the leaps and bounds forward we have made as a society”.

In response to Lib Dem figures in the report, Baroness Burt said the party was committed to creating a society where everyone could flourish and succeed, regardless of their background.

“We have been campaigning for the introduction of BAME pay gap reporting, for example, so that prejudices can be identified and corrected – all too often we simply don’t know the extent of the existing discrimination,” she told Eastern Eye.

Politicians should be mindful of the words they used, she said, to ensure they did not “inadvertently fan the flames of hate”.

Ford said his research backed up the argument that racial prejudice contributed to widening inequality in society.

The academic’s research also showed that those from an ethnic minority background were judged more negatively if they claimed jobseeker’s allowance.

Nancy Kelley, deputy chief executive of NatCen and coauthor of the report, said: “Prejudice on this scale is something we as a society should be concerned about, not least as there is a significant body of evidence that even subtle racial prejudices contribute to racial inequality in areas such as education, employment and in the criminal justice system.”

Dr Omar Khan, director of the racial equality thinktank Runnymede and co-author of the NatCen report, stressed the need for new ways of talking about race in order to help tackle stereotypes and fears differences gave rise to unfairness.

“Even more important, we need policies that tackle racial inequality and enable greater

social interaction between people from different backgrounds,” he said.