This week, two years after Black Lives Matter protests prompted by the death of George Floyd, and the prime minister’s promise of an urgent examination into the state of racism in the UK, the government has put forward an action plan in response to the controversial Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities (Cred) report.
Cred was widely criticised by politicians, journalists, campaigners and the British public for downplaying the prevalence of institutional racism in Britain, to the extent that commission chair Dr Tony Sewell denied there was any evidence of its existence. Not only that, even its commissioners and contributors distanced themselves from its processes, questioned the report’s academic rigour and expressed concern about the tailoring of evidence to conform to a predetermined political narrative. No 10 was alleged to have spent three months rewriting its findings. A working group from the United Nations, an organisation usually defined by diplomatic reserve, went so far as to label the report an attempt to “normalise white supremacy”.
