The parlous state of the Conservative party would matter very much less were it not for the fact that the alternative is a Labour government led by Keir Starmer.
Recent days have given us two examples of how a Starmer administration would be very far from the moderate and sensible force he tries to depict. First, it emerged that Labour is still very much in the gender self-ID camp. Then came a reminder that Labour in power will implement a corrosive and extreme stance on matters to do with ethnicity that ascribes any difference in outcomes across different groups to ‘structural racism’ that the state has an urgent duty to eradicate.
Such ideologically-based public spending favouritism would surely cause yet further damage to UK race relations
Labour sees such anti-black racism in almost everything, the latest examples being energy bills and housing costs. The party chair, Anneliese Dodds, claimed in a social media post this week that: ‘Under the Conservatives, Black families are: 5x more likely to be behind on energy bills, 4x more likely to be behind on their rent/mortgage. Labour will address racial inequality in government, including with a new Race Equality Act.’
While Labour politicians have been coy about exactly what this new legislation may contain, the commitment to introduce it follows a report for the party by Baroness Doreen Lawrence that Starmer commissioned after early evidence of a higher ethnic minority death rate from the coronavirus (yes, Covid was also racist).
Her report ranged far and wide, identifying structural or ‘institutional’ racism in many walks of life. For instance, it bemoaned the fact that ‘51 per cent of boys in young offender institutions are Black or from minority ethnic backgrounds.’ It contained recommendations such as more ‘diversifying’ of the national curriculum, that all government bodies and Whitehall departments should set up teams to conduct ‘race audits’ producing roadmaps to improve minorities recruitment, and that there should be mandatory reporting of the ‘ethnic pay gap’.
As far as Dodds’ specific example goes, let us ask ourselves how, conceptually, Labour might eradicate the disparity across racial groups when it comes to the impact of high fuel and housing costs. Given that black people are only being charged the same rate for energy as everyone else, it would appear that some form of positive discrimination would have to be implemented: priority in home insulation schemes, perhaps? Or maybe extra subsidy for energy bills going to local authority areas with large black populations.
Yet such ideologically-based public spending favouritism would surely cause yet further damage to UK race relations, stoking resentment among the majority population and also leaving minorities that are doing better than average on many fronts, such as Chinese, Indians and Jews, open to the accusation that they must somehow be beneficiaries of unfair discrimination in their favour.
And what might Labour do about disproportionality in the criminal justice system? Could the police be told to make sure that arrests broadly match the ethnic make-up of localities, for instance?
Given that former Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick laid it on the line to MPs a couple of years back that there are in fact very high rates of violent crime among a significant minority of black youths, any such move would actually destroy the principle of equality before the law.
The recent Race and Ethnic Disparities Commission, chaired by Tony Sewell, took a comprehensive look at differential outcomes across ethnic groups and concluded: ‘Most of the disparities we examined, which some attribute to racial discrimination, often do not have their origins in racism.’ It also identified evidence of ‘dwindling white prejudice’ in Britain.
When it comes to the struggles with energy bills and mortgage payments highlighted by Ms Dodds, it seems obvious that the high proportion of black households headed by a single parent is likely to be a major factor. Yet it is very hard to argue that has anything to do with state-sponsored racism.
Instead of moving to a post-racial politics, Labour is on course to institutionalise racial rivalry, causing immense further damage to race relations in the process.
This is all a reminder that Starmer and most other Labour MPs knelt before the militants and race grifters of BLM even as they defaced the Cenotaph and the Churchill statue in Parliament Square.
Can the Conservatives be relied upon always to stand up against this nonsense? Of course not. But Labour is much the more likely party to actively bring forward wave after wave of unjustified policies that worsen racial disharmony. And that is a very good reason for hoping it loses the next election.
Comments