Arguments about diversity in Britain often get stuck on the surface. Instead of talking about who holds power or how resources are distributed, many politicians and culture warriors obsess over the colour of faces in adverts, media and public spaces.
Reform UK MP Sarah Pochin claimed that adverts “full of black people, full of Asian people” drove her “mad”, before apologising for the wording. Conservative MP Robert Jenrick depicted Handsworth in Birmingham as a slum where he “didn’t see another white face”. One reading of this comment is that it implies that the absence of white people signals disorder or decline.
