The UK has a problem when it comes to handling racism
The prime minister of this country once said that the problems present in Africa are because ‘Britain are not in charge anymore’. He also once claimed it was ‘natural’ for the public to be scared of Islam. The country knew of his comments, but opted to elect him anyway.
That is the scale of the racism problem in the UK.
But the bigger issue is the handling of racism. When most of the press and leading MP’s have spent almost 4 years slamming the leader of the opposition, Jeremy Corbyn, for alleged anti-Semitism in his party, that suggests there is a robust yearning to address and eradicate even the slightest ripple of racism. When a sizeable number of traditional Labour Party voters flock to the Conservative Party in a general election and cite anti-Semitism as a major reason, it fortifies that suggestion.
Yet recent events indicate the handling of racism remains obscure and inconsistent.
A fresh racism row emerged when Trevor Phillips, former chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, was suspended from the Labour Party over allegations of Islamophobia.
He professed in 2016 that Muslims are becoming ‘a nation within a nation’ and in 2017 made crude remarks about Pakistani Muslim men sexually abusing children in British towns.
It is somewhat incongruous that someone who declared in 2019 that ‘Labour is a textbook case of institutional racism’ and also signed a letter refusing to vote Labour because of their association to anti-Semitism, is now facing racism allegations of his own. That is usually the green light for forensic scrutiny.
Instead, he has received an immeasurable amount of sympathy despite his injurious comments. Equality champion, veteran, and anti-racist campaigner were just some of the terms used to describe him in the headlines. But that only reinforced that there is indeed a disparity when it comes to handling racism.
In fact, in an article, The Times newspaper offered their view on the matter. ‘Orwellian and Kafkaesque’ is how they described the allegations. It was, according to the Murdoch-owned newspaper, ‘inherently absurd’ that the ‘committed anti-racism campaigner’ Trevor Phillips could have such charges levelled at him.
One can gather from the editorial that a few irrational and ill thought comments are not enough to label someone with a history of anti-racist endeavours as a racist, and certainly no reason to suspend him.
That would be convincing if The Times had adopted that approach when it came to anti-Semitism and Jeremy Corbyn. Instead when it came to The Times view on anti-Semitism in the Labour Party in March 2019, the assertion was that the problem was ‘rotting’ and was induced by the ‘politics and personality of the man at the top’.
That he spent much of his left as an anti-racist campaigner was irrelevant. It did not matter that in 1987 he successfully prevented property developers from obtaining control of a Jewish cemetery. Nor was of it any significance that in 1997 he helped organise the defence of Jewish-populated Wood Green from an inflammatory National Front rally. In the eyes of The Times, the legitimacy of those endeavours was rendered irrelevant and Corbyn was an outright anti-Semite who encouraged it in his party.
So why is Corbyn’s past not crucial to understanding potential anti-Semitism in his party yet the history of Trevor Phillips is immediately referenced when he is accused of racism? Why is a steely approach taken for one form of racism but not the other?
Problematically, this is an issue that appears to have plagued the UK community as a whole, rather than just The Times.
Broadcaster and journalist Nick Ferari demonstrated this when in light of the Phillips news, he quickly resorted to Twitter and proclaimed ‘Take it from me, Trevor Phillips is the least “ist” or “phobic” person I’ve met in 40 years of journalism. Utter balls.’ Again, there is a firm defence of Phillips, presumably based on his dedication to fighting racism. Yet Ferari is the author of a Daily Star column where he claims Corbyn ‘consorted with terrorists’ and labels Corbyn’s handling of alleged anti-Semitism as a ‘disgrace’.
To compound matters, embracing this contradictory approach to racism is not confined to the media.
Labour leadership hopeful Lisa Nandy had a tweet read out to her in an interview with BBC broadcaster Andrew Neil, written by prominent online Labour activist, Rachel Cousins. When quizzed on whether the contents of the tweet were anti-Semitic, Nandy did not hesitate to stress that they were.
Yet on the Victoria Derbyshire show this week, one of Trevor Phillips’ previous statements on Muslims and Islam was read out to Nandy, where he claimed ‘Muslims see the world differently from the rest of us, and are resistant to the traditional process of integration’. Nandy was then challenged on whether that was Islamophobic. Her response? ‘Its not for me to pronounce if its Islamophobic or not’.
It is bewildering that there is a steadfastness for certain types of racism and yet a reluctance and scepticism for others. The fact that there are stark similarities between the two cases and yet obvious variations with responses only aggravates procedures.
For example, a major part of the anti-Semitism row during Corbyn’s leadership was the adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism. When Corbyn objected to the adoption of the definition in full because of concerns it may stifle freedom of expression regarding Israel and their repressive policies towards the Palestinians, he was chastised.
Jewish Leadership Council chief executive Simon Johnson accused Corbyn of attempting to shamefully undermine the entire IHRA definition and Labour Friends of Israel insisted it illustrated Corbyn was ‘part of the problem, not the solution’.
So, on the surface, institutional racism is taken very seriously.
Not quite.
When a cross-party initiative introduced by the All Parliamentary Group on British Muslims, proposed a definition of Islamophobia, the Conservative government rejected it immediately, despite the fact Islamophobia had reached alarming rates in the Conservative Party. Indeed, 43% of Conservative members ‘would prefer to not have the country led by a Muslim’.
Additionally, this is a matter which the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) has raised consistently and consequently urged the UK’s equalities commission to investigate the party.
Adopting the definition would have been an adequate start and would have sent the message that there is an earnest attempt to tackle Islamophobia from within. Yet it was not even considered.
Ironically, the government’s justification for opposing the definition of Islamophobia was on free speech grounds and it would supposedly hamper counter-terrorism efforts. But upon their rejection, there was no furore. In fact, there was barely a murmur.
The wrong type of message is being conveyed and is perhaps encouraging racist and insensitive sentiments. It is probably why the Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary is able to so brazenly say Muslim men should be subjected to profiling at airports because they are a ‘threat’.
Is there a hierarchy of racism? Do double standards exist? Or is it just unmitigated ignorance? Whatever the reason, it is deeply disturbing.
