The biggest and most comprehensive survey of race inequality in the UK for more than a quarter of a century has found that more than a third of people from ethnic and religious minorities have experienced racially motivated physical or verbal abuse. The two-year research project declares that “Britain is not close to being a racially just society.” Its detailed evidence of discrimination and unfairness directly challenges the findings of the government-commissioned Sewell report on racial disparities of 2021, agreeing with many at the time who argued it downplayed the existence and impact of structural and institutional racism in the UK.
The study was led by Nissa Finney, professor of human geography at the University of St Andrews, who said it showed racism was “part of the daily lives” of people from ethnic minorities. Halima Begum, chief executive of the race equality thinktank the Runnymede Trust, said: “Sadly, few ethnic minority Britons will be surprised by the findings.”
Commenting on the report on Channel 4 News, Professor Jason Ardey, Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, said: “There are no immediate shocks or surprises. In some respects it’s more of the same. It reflects the glacial change that’s transpired in the last twenty or thirty years in relation to race, equality and mobilising greater race equality in the UK. What we are seeing is that racism is a systemic and institutional problem. It’s ability to re-invent itself and pivot to the prevailing inequalities that exist is in some respects quite impressive in a strange way.”
The research, produced by the Centre on the Dynamics of Ethnicity at Manchester University, will be published this week in a book Racism and Ethnic Inequality in a Time of Crisis. It claims to be the most extensive survey of racial inequalities since 1997. Read more here.
