Going backwards on racism – 25 years since McPherson

At a recent debate in east London about Labour’s ability to attract minority-ethnic voters, the former Conservative candidate Ali Miraj spoke with passion about the barriers facing “Black and Brown” people. We still face discrimination in the workplace in terms of low pay and poor opportunities, he conceded, but he refused to call this “structural racism”. Critical race theory – which he did not bother to define – was also lambasted for perpetuating a lack of agency among those who adhere to it.

Miraj is not the first person on the right of the political spectrum to express disdain for critical race theory. Speaking in parliament during Black History Month in 2020 – the same year that the African American George Floyd was murdered by the white police officer Derek Chauvin – Kemi Badenoch, the then minister for women and equalities, condemned critical race theory as representing an ideology that “sees my blackness as victimhood and […] whiteness as oppression”.

It is 25 years since William Macpherson and his advisers published their findings into the racist murder of the Black teenager Stephen Lawrence and the ensuing police investigation, yet there are signs that we are now regressing in promoting racial justice. A lack of political leadership instead promises to fuel increased ignorance and division.

February 1999 represented a landmark in UK race relations. The Lawrence inquiry introduced the term “institutional racism” into our lexicon, emphasising that racism comes in the form of more than just direct abuse. Processes, policies and procedures can also unwittingly lead to poor experiences and outcomes for racial minority groups, the report demonstrated. To view racism only in overt, visible terms, synonymous with groups like the National Front, was to misunderstand how it operated.

The following year saw the then Labour government fast track long-discussed changes to the Race Relations Act 1976. In the wake of the report, there were documentaries, conferences, funding streams, job opportunities – racism was alive and those with power said they were going to find it, name it and eradicate it.

In 2009, when Barack Obama made history as the first African American to become president of the United States, those with a superficial understanding of racism took joy in glorifying the moment as “post-race” – arguing that the idea that skin colour was a barrier to achievement could now be debunked. Similar moves were well under way on UK soil. At a major conference to mark 10 years after the Lawrence inquiry report, Paul Stephenson, the then Metropolitan police commissioner, denounced the term “institutional racism” as no longer appropriate or useful.

Trevor Phillips, the former chair of the then recently formed Equality and Human Rights Commission, also rejected the term, preferring instead the phrase “systemic bias”. And the then Labour justice secretary, Jack Straw, agreed, saying there remained only pockets of racism in the Met – a position he would correct when I interviewed him many years later.

Around this time, the Runnymede Trust commissioned me to carry out the first independent review of the government’s progress in meeting the Macpherson recommendations. I was stunned to discover 10 years on that, while most had been implemented, those that centred on race remained unmet. Statistics relating to the disproportionate number of Black groups being stopped and searched were roughly the same as when the report was published, even though only a tiny percentage of stops actually led to a charge. The number of Black and minority-ethnic officers was as depressingly low in 2008 as in 1999, even though the government had put targets in place – later abandoned – for police forces to improve their numbers. And the government’s own data showed that these officers were more likely to resign compared with their white colleagues.

Fast forward again, this time to 2019 and my appointment as specialist adviser to the cross-party home affairs select committee’s inquiry on the progress made 22 years after the Macpherson report. The same problems about race persisted. Questions were asked and the same answers presented. Yet the committee’s considered, in-depth conclusions did little to outweigh the attention paid to the poorly researched and clumsily worded Sewell report of 2021, the Boris Johnson-backed initiative that downplayed the scale and effect of racism.

The Conservative party continues to ridicule the idea that racism exists, and to condemn any theory, policy or initiative that relates to it. It celebrates the ethnic diversity of the frontbench, but only because it complements a narrative of individualism and rejects racialised group experiences. It champions having the first prime minister of south Asian heritage, but overlooks the historic evidence that Black and minority-ethnic people continue to be underrepresented at senior levels of the workforce, even when they are as equally qualified and experienced as their white colleagues.

Perhaps most damning is the recklessly inaccurate interpretation of critical race theory by Conservative politicians such as Badenoch and Miraj. In a worrying echo of the dangerous rightwing narratives of the US, it has become characterised as an ideology that perpetuates fecklessness among Black people and unfairly demonises white people. It is akin to depicting feminism as the project of apathetic women who hate men.

And then there is Labour, suffering renewed concerns about its stance on antisemitism and with discontent among Muslim voters over its Gaza stance. It has also been criticised for a lack of transparency around its proposed race equality legislation. The party has finally announced progress in implementing recommendations from the review conducted by Martin Forde KC into discrimination and bullying within its ranks – but its initial response was evasive and noncommittal.

Most of the 70 recommendations from the Macpherson report were aimed at the criminal justice system. Though it is rarely acknowledged, a handful were focused on education because Macpherson and his advisers regarded the schools system as essential in eliminating racism from society. Education has changed significantly since the recommendations were published in 1999. There is light there.

But less so in our politics. Twenty-five years after the release of the Macpherson report – 30 years after Stephen’s murder – we remain in dire need of leaders who will recognise the struggles of racially minoritised groups, alongside the challenges faced by white working-class communities, and who will find bold ways to bring us together rather than divide us. That wait continues.

Nicola Rollock is professor of social policy and race at King’s College London and author of The Racial Code: tales of resistance and survival (Penguin Press)