Following Black Lives Matter protests across the country last June, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced an inquiry into racial inequality to be carried out by the newly-established Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities. The PM stated that he wished to “change the narrative” on racism in the UK. The narrative of the recently-published 258-page "Race Report", however, has received widespread and high-level condemnation.
The report, which makes 24 practical recommendations to the government, acknowledges that racism exists in the UK. It however sees racism in discrete, isolated events by individual perpetrators, and rejects the notion of institutional or structural racism: “we no longer see a Britain where the system is deliberately rigged against ethnic minorities”. Indeed, the report asserts that the supposed educative and economic “success” of UK ethnic minorities should be “regarded as a model for other White-majority countries”. However, the conclusions and methodology of the report have been resoundingly criticised even by stakeholders.
INSTITUTIONAL RACISM
The report ultimately concludes that “geography, family influence, socio-economic background, culture, and religion have more significant impact on life chances than the existence of racism”. Jabeer Butt, chief executive of the Race Equality Foundation, states that it thus “puts the blame at individuals’ decisions or at family’s doors”. What the report does not grapple with, critics say, is why ethnic minorities are disproportionately likely to be from low socio-economic backgrounds, live in poorer areas, or otherwise grow up in conditions which the commission considers detrimental to life chances. To TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady, the very fact that “Black and Minority Ethnic workers are far more likely than White workers to be in low-paid, insecure jobs” is itself a manifestation of “institutional and structural racism” in the labour market. Ultimately, the report does not find institutional racism in the UK because it alters the definition of institutional racism from that previously established in government-commissioned reports.
The 1999 MacPherson report, commissioned after the murder of Stephen Lawrence, proposes a definition of institutional racism drawn from academic scholarship: “The collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture, or ethnic origin. It can be seen or detected in processes, attitudes and behaviour which amount to discrimination through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness and racial stereotyping which disadvantage minority ethnic people”. It stresses that institutional racism is “subtle”, a “systematic tendency” which can “unconsciously influence” the general performance of institutions.
In contrast, this Commission’s 2021 report claims that institutional racism denotes “when deep-seated racism can be proved on a systematic level and [is] not to be used as a general catch-all phrase for any microaggression, witting or unwitting”. It therefore does not connect its findings that, for example, Black ethnic groups are disproportionately likely to live in deprived neighbourhoods, or that people with ethnic minority names must write 1.6 times as many job applications as people with “majority names” to be called back, to institutional racism. These phenomena, it writes, “do not come about by design, and are certainly not deliberately targeted”. By refusing to acknowledge the notion of subtle, indirect, and unconscious institutional racism, the report is blind as to why these phenomena occur.
POOR SCHOLARSHIP
The report has furthermore been criticised for its “poor scholarship” – the words of Oxford professor Kamaldeep Bhui CBE, whose research was cited in the report – including the warping of data and use of selective quoting. As one UK columnist points out, the Commission quotes a survey in support of “Stop-and-search” policing which, the report writes, suggests that “drug crime patterns change when stop and search is taking place in an area”. The abstract of that study, however, states that the effect of stop-and-search is “marginal, at best”.
At least 20 organisations and individuals who were thanked for their contributions to the report have subsequently distanced themselves from its findings – including NHS trusts, police forces, charities, academic institutions, private sector companies, and leaders of previous government-commissioned reviews. Some, like historian Stephen Bourne, claim they hadn’t been knowingly consulted. Other actors write that their contributions are not reflected in the report: Green Park recruitment had several senior associates interviewed for the report, but feels that “our testimonies were lost”.
The British Medical Association also stated that “we do not believe the report appropriately reflected our submission”. Council Chair Dr Chaand Nagpaul wrote to the Chair of the Commission to criticise the report’s “flawed interpretation of selected data”, and to reject the report’s argument that structural race inequality is not a major factor affecting the outcomes and life chances of many UK citizens.
UN EXPERTS CONDEMN THE REPORT
On 19 April, the five independent experts making up the UN Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent condemned the report: “the reality is”, they wrote in a statement, “that people of African descent continue to experience poor economic, social, and health outcomes at vastly disproportionate rates in the UK”.
The experts note that the Commission drew neither from previous UK reports (including the 2017 Angiolini Review, Lammy Review, and McGregor-Smith Review) or UN reports (such as the Group of Experts’ 2021 report, or the 2016 observations by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination), which have “highlighted the damaging impact of institutional racism” in the UK. This 2021 report, the statement claims, “offers no evidence” for now claiming that there is no such institutional racism.
The statement calls for the government to reject the report, disband or reconstitute the UK Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities to prioritise an authentic – rather than politicised – examination into racism, and ensure the reflection of historical facts.
THE 24 RECOMMENDATIONS
The UK government has responded by claiming that the Group “misrepresent the Commission’s findings”. Despite this controversy, the UK government remains committed to considering the report’s recommendations and assessing "implications for future government policy".
The 24 recommendations proposed by the report would, in the Commission’s view, reduce experiences of individual racism. A number of these recommendations have, however, also been criticised as offering a negligible or even damaging impact on the current situation.
Recommendation 13 suggests implementing an extended school day, prioritising disadvantaged areas, in order to allow pupils to spend more time on “physical and cultural activities”. Campaigners argue that extending school days could exhaust pupils, and thus exhaust disadvantaged pupils disproportionately, as well as affecting the commitments held by some ethnic minorities, such as attending after-school mosques.
Recommendation 16 proposes a “targeted apprenticeships campaign”, encouraging pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds or those facing discrimination to take on apprenticeships that they may not previously have considered. A targeted approach, however, risks pushing students from disadvantaged background into apprenticeships, and reducing the number of Black, Asian, or ethnic minority students gaining higher education qualifications.
Much attention has been given to Recommendation 24, which urges the government to stop using the acronym BAME (Black, Asian, Minority, and Ethnic). Whilst the term is a topic of debate amongst campaigners for racial equality, high-profile campaigners have expressed frustration that the report chose to focus on relatively “trivial” issues over the nuanced and pressing problems of institutional racism. “If advice on the use of the term BAME is the extent of the commission’s findings, or the most pressing of its recommendations,” writes Halima Begum, Chief Executive of the Runnymede Trust, “then Britain’s ethnic minority communities are being insulted by this report and its authors”.
Rejected and criticised by many for both its arguments and its methodology, the report’s inflammatory claims and recommendations only add more fuel to the fire of a damaging culture war, which only stifles the possibility of rational discussion about institutional racism in the United Kingdom.
Tanya is a Law student heading into the final year of her degree at the University of Manchester. She is interested in bringing attention to human rights issues arising from her Pro-Bono work at University (volunteering at the Legal Advice Centre and taking part in volunteering projects). Her main goal is to become a Barrister practising in either Criminal or Family Law.
Helena Trenkić is studying for an MPhil in Modern European History at Jesus College, Cambridge. She is also a member of the National Council of Women GB, contributing to the organisation's advocacy for legislative change to better tackle Violence Against Women and Girls. She has been their delegate to international conferences including the UN Commission on the Status of Women in New York.