Labour’s proposals unlikely to be enough to end race disparities

Keir Starmer and Doreen Lawrence at a memorial service in London for the 30th anniversary of the murder of her son Stephen. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

While Britain was still struggling through the Covid pandemic in autumn 2020, Keir Starmer announced that Labour would bring in a race relations act if it came to power.

His promise was driven by concern about the disproportionate impact of the coronavirus crisis on minority ethnic communities, confirmed in a report from Doreen Lawrence, the Labour peer and mother of the murdered black teenager Stephen.