Much-maligned former Metropolitan Police commissioner Lord Iain Blair had a few interesting things to say at the Stephen Lawrence memorial lecture last night, not least an attack on the Coalition government for doing virtually nothing to address race inequality in Britain.
Speaking to an invited audience, including the former Home Secretary Jack Straw, Lord Blair said:
“The coalition has hardly addressed the issue of racial equality since it took office, as Doreen Lawrence so clearly explained in her interview with the Guardian at the end of last month. In Stephen’s name, let us accept the challenge he has bequeathed to us and drive on towards change for the better.”
The speech came on the same day that I received this press release, from the minister for race equality Andrew Stunell (pictured above) and his boss Eric Pickles, which urges Britain to celebrate “what we have in common rather than our differences.”
There was not a single mention of race inequality, a key difference which separates communities and denies opportunities to many people solely on grounds of their skin colour and culture. So let us return to Lord Blair, who did address this point in his lecture. Lord Blair said:
“We know that black children are twice as likely to die before they are one than their white sisters and brothers, four times as likely to be murdered before they are 30, five times as likely to be imprisoned and three times as likely to be poor in old age.
“There are no black editors in mainstream journalism, few black judges and there have only been two minority police officers of the rank of chief constable. The financial centre that is the City of London remains a white enclave.”
Going back to the colour-blind government statement, the minister for race equality is quoted as saying: “The Coalition is determined to give everyone the ability and aspiration to prosper, breaking down barriers to social mobility.” So far, so bland.
Pickles and Stunell were launching a paper called Creating the Conditions for Integration, which is a mass of contradictions. It talks about tolerance but is silent on racism, the single greatest cause of intolerance. It highlights the need for integration but fails to define this concept from French-style assimilation.
It fails to acknowledge that immigrant communities have by-and-large always been the first to extend the hand of friendship and try to fit in, often to be faced by open hostility and racism from the host community. And the paper labours on extremism yet gives hardly any credit to immigrant communities for being at the forefront in rejecting extremism in their midst.
If this is the governments’ prescription for a harmonious flag-waving Diamond Jubilee it is doomed to certain failure.
I wrote last October about the need for the Lib Dems to face up to their critics who, rightly, bemoan the fact that the Coalition has done precious little to address issues of race inequality in society. It was clear, as long ago as early 2010, that my party did not have the policies to make an impact in this area.
Lee Jasper was more forthright, claiming that the government had no understanding or commitment to these issues.
There is some hope (a new Race Equalities Taskforce reporting to Nick Clegg is due to start work soon) that the Coalition parties can go into the 2015 general election, but time is fast running out to introduce legislation let alone see any results.
There is no evidence that the one single policy worth mentioning, Lynne Featherstone’s name-blind job applications plan, is even being used by employers anywhere, let alone making a difference, despite so far unsubstantiated claims that it is “a success.”
There is little point in having a ‘race equality minister’ if there is no work going on in this field. And I have never quite understood why equalities minister Featherstone sub-contracted the subject of race equality to a lesser-ranked minister in another department anyway. Frankly, on the evidence of last nights’ Stephen Lawrence speech, we’d be much better off replacing Stunell with Lord Iain Blair.
Stunell’s superior at the DCLG, Eric Pickles, promised the Daily Mail that English language and Christian faith will be restored to the centre of public life, and quotes Pickles as saying: “Our first question must always be, “How can people contribute to building an integrated England?” A phrase laden with undertones hinting that immigrant communities are less patriotic than the average white English man or woman. Pickles adds:
“A few people, a handful of activists, have insisted that it isn’t enough simply to celebrate the beliefs of minority communities; they want to disown the traditions and heritage of the majority, including the Christian faith and the English language.
“In recent years we’ve seen public bodies bending over backwards to translate documents up to and including their annual report into a variety of foreign languages.
“We’ve seen men and women disciplined for wearing modest symbols of Christian faith at work, and we’ve seen legal challenges to councils opening their proceedings with prayers, a tradition that goes back generations, brings comfort to many and hurts no one. This is the politics of division.”
The notion that a handful of activists (code for race and faith leaders) are preventing Christians from worshipping their God and are “disowning” English traditions and heritage is a fallacy. Britain’s traditions are constantly changing, and parts of its’ heritage – most notably enslavement, colonialism and neo-colonialism – need to be challenged.
Unless Pickles wants us to revert to the ‘Nordic traditions’, maypole dancing and wicker-weaving so beloved of the Far Right he would do well to recognise that immigrant communities are enriching Britain by bringing aspects of their culture to the mainstream.
English culture and Christianity are not under threat from foreigners hateful of ‘indigenous’ traditions, as Pickles implies. Culture and faith are as much influenced by American media conglomerates and their music, games and film, than any immigrant community in this country. If anything, newly-arrived immigrants are bringing philosophies than help slow down the spread of harmful Western influences that have gripped the youth.
The overall impression left by Pickles is one of restraining the dog of militant English nationalism while egging it on to bark at passing foreigners. Such tactics can only benefit the Far Right, who feed off the lingering atmosphere created whenever a mainstream politician makes such statements.
Pickles knows the disenfranchised white working class have selective hearing on such matters, picking up the dog-whistle about English culture being under siege while missing the points about immigration proving itself as having positive economic and cultural benefits.
It is precisely this kind of politics – more sophisticated than Enoch Powell but essentially leaving the same stench of scapegoating in the air – that is preventing the coalition from adopting more progressive policies to address inequalities in society.
Lib Dems have literally been ‘Pickled’ by a backward-looking Conservative agenda that probematises non-Christian faith and black communities while elevating the superiority of ‘traditional’ English culture that is rooted in the middle ages.
This is one reason why my party needs to put clear yellow water between itself and their Tory partners, in order to develop a radical Liberal progressive agenda that has social mobility and a genuine desire to dismantle the barriers that maintain unequal racial outcomes.
We certainly need a race equality minister not afraid to mention race equality. I nominate Iain Blair!
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