Is Britain Really the World’s Least Racist Country?
The U.K.’s racism review contains more value than many critics acknowledge, but overall it offers too many excuses and too few answers.
Boris Johnson’s Commission had its say, but lost its voice.
Photographer: Alex Pantling/Getty Images
At least a half-dozen major inquiries in the past two decades have examined various aspects of race in Britain. All of them found evidence of institutional racism, including four since 2017.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities, launched after the Black Lives Matter protests last year, begs to differ. Its controversial conclusions in a report published last week say that while it’s too early to declare Britain a “post-racial society,” arguments of institutional racism are overblown.