Claudia Webb’s article in the Independent today reveals that despite the fact we’ve had over 200 recommendations from various commissions into racial inequality since 2015, hardly any of the recommendations were actually implemented by the Conservative government.
She also tells us that, supposedly, the Home Office is being investigated by the EHRC over its hostile environment immigration policy and the illegal tactics it’s members used in order to remove people with a legitimate right to stay in the UK. By the way, before you get your hopes up I should tell you that the EHRC is a government funded body.
Seriously, you’d have to posses an extraordinary level of ignorance to take the word of a man who uses phrases like “watermelon smiles”, “piccaninnies”,”letter boxes” and “bank robbers” to describe people of colour and who thinks the return of British colonialism would be the answer to all of Africa’s woes. Boris Johnson even shouted down the Macpherson reforms, proposed following the Stephen Lawrence murder. He described them as “Orwellian” and just silly ideas conjured up by the “PC brigade”. This is a text-book move from Johnson – rather than discuss or debate the content of a report, or the merit of the recommendations it makes, he employs school bully tactics to demeans the credibility of the person who undertook the investigation and produced the report. He’s already resorted to creating a narrative around how black people think of themselves as victims,
which begs the question, why is he even bothering to call for a racial inequality commission at all if he really believes that? Could it be an attempt to try and distract people away from debating the Conservative party’s track record on the ill treatment of minority groups or, perhaps, even looking at his own record on racism? I imagine that might have something to do with it of course but it’s more likely an attempt at kicking the can down the road in the hope that ‘all this fuss’ and the intensity of feelings will have diminished by the time the report eventually lands on the door mat. Of course, this also gives him plenty of time to think of clever ways to undermine and dismiss the recommendations they might come up with.
By the way, another clever tactic Johnson likes to use a lot is to repeatedly imply that ‘he’ represents the British people and that ‘he’ knows that they want. So, for example, you’ll hear him say things like “the people want to see” whenever he responds to a question and usually ones that are critical of him. It’s almost as if he envisions himself as a monarch ruling over his domain, rather than an elected minister employed by the people to do a job. Of course this might also explain why he can’t be bothered to attend any cobra meetings? Apparently, Johnson hasn’t attended any Cobra meetings since 10th May but if you think there’s an element of deja vu about this, there is! Johnson also went AWOL for no less than 5 cobra meetings at the start if the pandemic (in January and February), when serious decisions should have been made about how to rise to the challenge of fighting a killer pandemic that was already, very quickly, edging closer to our borders.
As of May 2020, the Home Office have received 1,275 applications to the Windrush Compensation Scheme. So far, only 60 people have actually received any form of compensation. Kerry-Anne Mendoza recently pointed out that three years on from the Grenfell tragedy, survivors of the fire are still living in temporary accommodation. She reminds us that “not one person has been held accountable for the criminal decisions that led to the inferno.” It’s also worth bearing in mind that The National Fire Chiefs Council are still calling for “a fundamental reform of building safety” but sadly, these warnings have been falling on deaf ears because there are still about 2,000 residential buildings covered in flammable cladding. This clearly demonstrates that the Conservatives don’t care a jot about doing the right thing. They know, all they have to do is just make you believe that they are trying to do something by setting up a commission. Then all they have to do is to poo poo all the recommendations. They’ll blame the commission for failing rather than admit that truth – i.e. that they’re not going to make any changes to a status quo that protects their privilege.
Once we consider all the evidence, the only logical conclusion must be that we can not afford to simply hand over the reins to the ruling elite who have their own vested interest in keeping people of colour ‘in their place’. We must continue to fight to put an end to this Tory WHITE wash if we want to bring about tangible change!
