Skip to content 
Search

Latest Stories

Prime minister’s questions

By Amit Roy

DR TONY SEWELL, chair­man of the commissioners , says in his foreword to the race report: “Last summer, the prime minister asked if I would be willing to chair a commission to investigate race and ethnic disparities in the UK…I readily agreed: I have spent all my working life as an educationalist, dedicated to this cause.


“The Commission was es­tablished with 10 of us drawn from a variety of fields span­ning science, education, economics, broadcasting, medicine, and policing.

“All the while we have been supported by the Cabinet Office’s Race and Disparity Unit ... set up in 2016. It has accumulated all the impor­tant data on race and ethnic­ity, in one database.”

Boris Johnson set up the commission after the Black Lives Matter protests spilled over from the US to the UK last summer. The word is the commission’s composition was influenced by Munira Mirza, head of the policy unit at 10, Downing Street. It is said neither she nor Sewell believes Britain is in­stitutionally racist.

So what does Boris think of the report?

I am assuming he has skimmed through the 264-page report, with its 24 recommendations.

He called it a “very interesting piece of work” but added: “I don’t say the government is going to agree with abso­lutely everything in it.”

We don’t know the bits he disagrees with, but he said that “it has some original and stimulating work in it that I think people need to read and to consider.

“There are very serious is­sues that our society faces to do with racism that we need to address. We’ve got to do more to fix it, we need to un­derstand the severity of the problem. We’re going to be looking at all the ideas they have put forward, and we’ll be making our response.”

More For You

Comment: Last summer’s riots could erupt again without sustained action on cohesion

FILE PHOTO: Riot police hold back protesters near a burning police vehicle in Southport, England

Getty Images

Comment: Last summer’s riots could erupt again without sustained action on cohesion

Could this long, hot summer see violence like last year’s riots erupt again? It surely could. That may depend on some trigger event – though the way in which the tragic murders of Southport were used to mobilise inchoate rage, targeting asylum seekers and Muslims, showed how tenuous such a link can be. There has already been unrest again in Ballymena this summer. Northern Ireland saw more sustained violence, yet fewer prosecutions than anywhere in England last summer.

"We must not wait for more riots to happen" says Kelly Fowler, director of Belong, who co-publish a new report, ‘The State of Us’, this week with British Future. The new research provides a sober and authoritative guide to the condition of cohesion in Britain. A cocktail of economic pessimism, declining trust in institutions and the febrile tinderbox of social media present major challenges. Trust in political institutions has rarely been lower – yet there is public frustration too with an angry politics which amplifies division.

Keep ReadingShow less
The real challenge isn’t having more parties, but governing a divided nation

Zarah Sultana and Jeremy Corbyn

Getty Images

The real challenge isn’t having more parties, but governing a divided nation

It is a truth universally acknowledged that voters are dissatisfied with the political choices on offer - so must they be in want of new parties too? A proliferation of start-ups showed how tricky political match-making can be. Zarah Sultana took Jeremy Corbyn by surprise by announcing they will co-lead a new left party. Two of Nigel Farage’s exes announced separate political initiatives to challenge Reform from its right, with the leader of London’s Conservatives lending her voice to Rupert Lowe’s revival of the politics of repatriation.

Corbyn and Sultana are from different generations. He had been an MP for a decade by the time she was born. For Sultana’s allies, this intergenerational element is a core case for the joint leadership. But the communications clash suggests friction ahead. After his allies could not persuade Sultana to retract her announcement, Corbyn welcomed her decision to leave Labour, saying ‘negotiations continue’ over the structure and leadership of a new party. It will seek to link MPs elected as pro-Gaza independents with other strands of the left outside Labour.

Keep ReadingShow less
Amol Rajan confronts loss along the Ganges

Amol Rajan at Prayagraj

Amol Rajan confronts loss along the Ganges

ONE reason I watched the BBC documentary Amol Rajan Goes to the Ganges with particular interest was because I have been wondering what to do with the ashes of my uncle, who died in August last year. His funeral, like that of his wife, was half Christian and half Hindu, as he had wished. But he left no instructions about his ashes.

Sooner or later, this is a question that every Hindu family in the UK will have to face, since it has been more than half a century since the first generation of Indian immigrants began arriving in this country. Amol admits he found it difficult to cope with the loss of his father, who died aged 76 three years ago. His ashes were scattered in the Thames.

Keep ReadingShow less
One year on, Starmer still has no story — but plenty of regrets

Sir Keir Starmer

Getty Images

One year on, Starmer still has no story — but plenty of regrets

Do not expect any parties in Downing Street to celebrate the government’s first birthday on Friday (4). After a rocky year, prime minister Sir Keir Starmer had more than a few regrets when giving interviews about his first year in office.

He explained that he chose the wrong chief of staff. That his opening economic narrative was too gloomy. That choosing the winter fuel allowance as a symbol of fiscal responsibility backfired. Starmer ‘deeply regretted’ the speech he gave to launch his immigration white paper, from which only the phrase ‘island of strangers’ cut through. Can any previous political leader have been quite so self-critical of their own record in real time?

Keep ReadingShow less
starmer-bangladesh-migration
Sir Keir Starmer
Getty Images

Comment: Can Starmer turn Windrush promises into policy?

Anniversaries can catalyse action. The government appointed the first Windrush Commissioner last week, shortly before Windrush Day, this year marking the 77th anniversary of the ship’s arrival in Britain.

The Windrush generation came to Britain believing what the law said – that they were British subjects, with equal rights in the mother country. But they were to discover a different reality – not just in the 1950s, but in this century too. It is five years since Wendy Williams proposed this external oversight in her review of the lessons of the Windrush scandal. The delay has damaged confidence in the compensation scheme. Williams’ proposal had been for a broader Migrants Commissioner role, since the change needed in Home Office culture went beyond the treatment of the Windrush generation itself.

Keep ReadingShow less