Labour’s silly embrace of BLM ideology

If Labour blows its giant ballot lead and fails to win a majority on the subsequent UK Common Election, then among the blame will certainly head the best way of Anneliese Dodds.

Today, the previous shadow chancellor doesn’t function enormously in Labour’s favoured roster of TV speaking heads. However every now and then Labour’s chairperson escapes from wherever she’s being saved and says what she and a lot of the Labour Social gathering really consider.

A specific working example came to visit the weekend, with a coverage announcement to mark the beginning of Black Historical past Month. On the finish of her tweet, heralding 31 days of ‘black historical past’, she pledged: ‘Labour will introduce a Race Equality Act to deal with structural racial inequalities.’ Positive sufficient, a subsequent tweet from Labour leader Keir Starmer confirmed Dodds’ assertion: ‘My Labour authorities will introduce a Race Equality Act to deal with structural racial inequalities.’

Provided that the Race Relations Act of 1965 outlawed discrimination on grounds of ‘color, race, or ethnic or nationwide origins’, and the Equality Act of 2010 specified race as a protected attribute, one might need thought additional laws on this space superfluous. But Labour will not be focussing on guaranteeing equality of alternative, as these items of laws tried to do. As Starmer has it, Labour is focussing on tackling ‘structural racial inequalities’, a variation on the BLM-style thought of ‘structural racism’.

In accordance with this concept, each disparity is to be attributed to racism. As an example, if the proportion of black folks caught up within the criminal-justice system exceeds their proportion in society as a complete, which it does, this isn’t seen as a consequence of disproportionate offending charges. No, it’s seen as a product of the racial prejudice of the criminal-justice system. The identical goes for each different disparity, from the comparatively small proportion of black individuals who personal their very own companies to the comparatively giant proportion of black kids excluded from college. Every advanced downside, which could have its personal advanced causes, is simplistically blamed on the racial prejudice that supposedly ‘constructions’ each space of social life.

It’s removed from clear simply what will likely be in Starmer’s new Race Equality Act to make good on Labour’s plan to deal with ‘structural racism’. However a couple of clues have been offered by an apparently well-sourced article within the Guardian in February.

The Guardian reported {that a} ‘race-equality job drive’ co-chaired by Dodds and led by Baroness Doreen Lawrence will suggest particular help for black-led companies ‘to acquire profitable authorities contracts’ issued by a future Labour administration. The duty drive was additionally mentioned to be proposing necessary ‘ethnicity pay-gap reporting’ for big corporations and unspecified motion to cut back school-exclusion charges. ‘Labour will make tackling structural racial inequality a key mission in authorities’, mentioned Dodds on the time.

This mission could also be key for a Labour authorities, however it’s additionally hopelessly misdirected. The federal government-commissioned Sewell report into ‘race and ethnic disparities’, revealed in 2021, dismissed the concept of ‘structural racism’. It discovered that racial disparities are largely not all the way down to racial discrimination. They’re due as an alternative to different components, comparable to ‘the function of cultural traditions, together with household, inside completely different minority teams; the overlap between ethnic and socio-economic drawback; and the company we’ve got as people and teams’.

Labourites are on a really slippery slope right here. In the event that they attribute each damaging final result affecting black folks to racial prejudice, then each damaging final result affecting different teams outlined in keeping with race will certainly come to be seen in the identical mild. It will possible result in a nasty, divisive competitors for public sources between completely different racial teams.

And the way lengthy will or not it’s earlier than some so-called progressives begin seeing the over-achievement of some minorities as one thing that wants correcting? For instance, Chinese language, Indian and Jewish-heritage residents are lately ‘over-represented’ in lots of prestigious sectors. Will this come to be seen as a ‘downside’ requiring motion? That has occurred earlier than in human historical past, and by no means with completely satisfied penalties.

If and when our mainstream media lastly rouses itself to have a look at Labour’s possible agenda for presidency, then this mooted Race Equality Act goes to face out as a very ugly carbuncle. Purple Wall voters specifically are unlikely to be impressed by this lurch into racial identitarianism. Simply because the tide of smart opinion goes out on BLM, the Labour Social gathering seems able to undertake its socially corrosive agenda wholesale. Absolutely the British public will not be going to vote for this.

Patrick O’Flynn is a former MEP.