TRIGGERnometry - The Truth About Race Relations in the UK - Rakib Ehsan

00:00:01.000 What is it that the left gets wrong about ethnic minorities?

00:00:05.000 Where would I start?

00:00:06.000 They can't comprehend that there may be racial tensions

00:00:09.000 which don't involve white people.

00:00:12.000 And I think that, you know, 0.96

00:00:15.000 which coming from Luton and being raised there, I find bonkers.

00:00:19.000 If you just look at providing anti-discrimination protections

00:00:22.000 on the grounds of race, ethnicity and religion,

00:00:24.000 Britain comfortably outperforms other EU countries.

00:00:28.000 There's a number of files in the UK.

00:00:30.000 They look at the EU as this sort of,

00:00:32.000 almost like a sort of haven of tolerance and openness.

00:00:35.000 Have they never been to France?

00:00:37.000 Well, and I think especially a real problem

00:00:40.000 is middle-class progressivism in modern-day Britain

00:00:43.000 because these are people who,

00:00:45.000 I think they almost use racial identity politics

00:00:48.000 as a way to deflect attention from their own position

00:00:50.000 of socio-economic privilege.

00:00:52.000 I don't think race is the influential determinant

00:00:55.000 of life chances that many people portray it to be.

00:00:58.000 What is?

00:01:09.000 Hello and welcome to Triggerdometry.

00:01:12.000 I'm Francis Foster.

00:01:13.000 I'm Constantine Kissin.

00:01:14.000 And this is a show for you if you want honest conversations

00:01:17.000 with fascinating people.

00:01:19.000 Our terrific guest today returns to the show for the second time

00:01:22.000 to talk about his new book,

00:01:24.000 Beyond Grievance, What the Left Gets Wrong

00:01:26.000 About Ethnic Minorities.

00:01:27.000 Rikib Ekstein, welcome back.

00:01:28.000 Thank you for having me again.

00:01:30.000 It's great to have you on the show.

00:01:31.000 You've written this book.

00:01:32.000 Looking forward to talking about it.

00:01:34.000 Before we do, remind everybody,

00:01:35.000 who are you, your background,

00:01:37.000 how are you talking about this stuff

00:01:39.000 and how did you get here?

00:01:40.000 No, sure.

00:01:41.000 So without blowing my own trumpet too much,

00:01:43.000 I'm an expert.

00:01:44.000 My background's in social cohesion,

00:01:47.000 race relations,

00:01:49.000 matters surrounding integration as well.

00:01:52.000 And those are kind of themes that I talk about a great deal

00:01:55.000 in my book, Beyond Grievance,

00:01:57.000 What the Left Gets Wrong About Ethnic Minorities.

00:01:59.000 And I'd say that my general interest,

00:02:02.000 living most of my life in Luton,

00:02:04.000 is how do you cultivate shared values,

00:02:07.000 a sense of common purpose in a hyper-diverse society?

00:02:10.000 Because the reality is, in my view,

00:02:11.000 diversity is not an unadulterated good

00:02:13.000 by any stretch of the imagination.

00:02:15.000 And it's only a strength, really,

00:02:17.000 if you can tie that together, as I said,

00:02:19.000 with those shared values, mutual obligations

00:02:22.000 and a sense of common purpose.

00:02:23.000 And those are the kind of concepts

00:02:24.000 that I really tackle in the new book.

00:02:27.000 Can I just say, before we jump in, right,

00:02:29.000 is that if I had come on here

00:02:31.000 and I said that,

00:02:32.000 I'm an expert in racial integration, mate,

00:02:34.000 it's got a little bit of a different vibe.

00:02:36.000 Yeah.

00:02:37.000 Well, I'm glad you added that.

00:02:39.000 Yeah.

00:02:40.000 Very important.

00:02:41.000 So, Rakib, let's talk about

00:02:42.000 what the left gets wrong about ethnic minorities.

00:02:45.000 And one of the things

00:02:46.000 I actually want to explore with you, as well,

00:02:48.000 is we've had people,

00:02:51.000 you and people of a similar mindset to you

00:02:54.000 on the show many, many times, as you know.

00:02:56.000 Sure.

00:02:57.000 And I think, certainly in our world,

00:02:59.000 there's a consensus about this issue.

00:03:01.000 The left gets lots of stuff wrong

00:03:02.000 about race relations and minorities, et cetera.

00:03:05.000 And yet, the big cities in this country,

00:03:08.000 which are minority, you know, heavily populated.

00:03:11.000 Strong ethnic minority populations.

00:03:12.000 Yes.

00:03:13.000 Well, London, I think, is now, what, 30-something percent?

00:03:16.000 So, I think it's around,

00:03:17.000 just over one in three residents in London

00:03:20.000 are white British.

00:03:21.000 Right.

00:03:22.000 So, if the left is so wrong about ethnic minorities,

00:03:24.000 why do they keep voting for left-wing parties?

00:03:28.000 I think it's a very good question.

00:03:30.000 I think that that's largely a failing of the Conservative Party.

00:03:32.000 I think that, for a long time,

00:03:34.000 it's had a very problematic relationship

00:03:36.000 with many of the countries' racial and ethnic minorities.

00:03:39.000 And I think that stems back from, you know,

00:03:42.000 Powell's Rivers of Blood speech, for example.

00:03:45.000 And also, there's the Smethic by-election in the same decade

00:03:49.000 where the Tory candidate there, main slogan was,

00:03:53.000 if you want to, for a neighbour, vote Labour.

00:03:57.000 And I think people probably know what that means.

00:03:59.000 Vote Liberal or Labour, yeah.

00:04:00.000 Well, I think people will know what that racial slur was

00:04:04.000 in that slogan.

00:04:05.000 And I think it really takes time to really rebuild those ties.

00:04:09.000 But I think that the point is, with the Conservative Party,

00:04:11.000 they certainly have problems in terms of how they engage

00:04:14.000 with what I would consider to be quite socially conservative minorities.

00:04:18.000 And I just don't think they've put the effort in.

00:04:20.000 I think you have people on the right, for example,

00:04:22.000 who say, you know, London has fallen.

00:04:24.000 And they go into those Londonistan narratives and all the rest of it.

00:04:28.000 And actually, if they made a bit more effort,

00:04:30.000 I think that they could cultivate a good amount of support

00:04:33.000 in traditional ethnic minority communities,

00:04:36.000 which are quite family-oriented, community-spirited.

00:04:39.000 They're quite conservative when it comes to law and order.

00:04:42.000 And actually, I think that in the last mayoral contest

00:04:45.000 between Sadiq Khan and Sean Bailey,

00:04:47.000 I think the Conservatives didn't truly believe in their own candidates.

00:04:50.000 So maybe they backed him up with the time and resources

00:04:53.000 that might have been a different outcome.

00:04:55.000 It's a really good point, actually, because there was a moment

00:04:58.000 where I thought actually Sean stood a very good chance

00:05:00.000 of winning against Sadiq.

00:05:02.000 But the left has also got its problems with ethnic minorities

00:05:06.000 in that there's this narrative in the left

00:05:08.000 that if you don't vote for a left party

00:05:11.000 in order to quote a very famous philosopher,

00:05:14.000 you ain't black. 0.94

00:05:15.000 No, absolutely.

00:05:16.000 I mean, we've seen Kwasi Kwarteng, no fan of his economic policy,

00:05:20.000 but there have been parliamentarians who refer to him

00:05:24.000 as superficially black.

00:05:25.000 You know, so that kind of, you know, very divisive notions

00:05:28.000 of, you know, racial authenticity.

00:05:31.000 I think it's a real problem on the left.

00:05:33.000 And I think that more generally, if you look at Sadiq Khan,

00:05:36.000 for example, a lot of people don't actually realise

00:05:38.000 he's not that popular in the capital,

00:05:40.000 especially with ethnic minorities.

00:05:42.000 But I think the question there is what is their alternative?

00:05:46.000 And I think that's where the Conservative Party,

00:05:48.000 they need to have their own.

00:05:49.000 If you actually look at recent electoral results,

00:05:51.000 some of the most promising results

00:05:53.000 that the Conservative Party have had at local level

00:05:56.000 are in Slough, for example.

00:05:57.000 Slough is a majority non-white town.

00:06:00.000 Leicester, quite recently, they've made quite strong

00:06:03.000 local gains on the council up there.

00:06:06.000 So if you're actually seeing where the Tories are performing

00:06:10.000 quite well in recent elections,

00:06:12.000 it's actually in more ethnically

00:06:14.000 and racially diverse parts of the country.

00:06:17.000 That's really interesting.

00:06:18.000 So coming back to the subject of your book then,

00:06:21.000 what is it that the left gets wrong about ethnic minorities?

00:06:26.000 Where would I start?

00:06:27.000 I mean, I think they're getting a lot wrong at the moment.

00:06:29.000 I think one thing I really wanted to achieve with the book

00:06:31.000 is challenge what I consider doom and gloom narratives

00:06:34.000 surrounding the lives of racial and ethnic minorities

00:06:38.000 and religious minorities as well in the UK.

00:06:42.000 I think that there's a very good number of identitarian activists

00:06:46.000 which regularly get on mainstream media.

00:06:49.000 And I think they provide a grossly inaccurate caricature of life in Britain.

00:06:55.000 And I think what I wanted to do with the book is actually say

00:06:58.000 that the picture on the ground is far more positive,

00:07:01.000 whether it's having strong attachments to British national identity,

00:07:05.000 you know, performing well at school, doing well in the labour market.

00:07:11.000 A lot of people are still very surprised when I tell them, for example,

00:07:14.000 that two of the highest earning groups now in one day Britain

00:07:18.000 are workers of Chinese and Indian origin.

00:07:21.000 Their average hourly pay outperforms the white British mainstream.

00:07:26.000 And I think when you're actually looking at, you know, that sense of belonging,

00:07:29.000 Crest Advisory did a recent study which showed that three in four British Muslims

00:07:33.000 think that Britain is a good place to live as a Muslim. 1.00

00:07:37.000 And I tell people that and they're very surprised.

00:07:39.000 And you have to ask, why are they surprised?

00:07:41.000 Interestingly, that figure drops right down for non-Muslims.

00:07:44.000 So actually, non-Muslims are more likely to think that Britain is an Islamophobic society

00:07:49.000 compared to British Muslims themselves.

00:07:52.000 But those kind of narratives, I don't think, get much exposure in the mainstream media.

00:07:56.000 Do you think part of the problem is, is that we've got these whole,

00:07:59.000 these entire raft of political commentators who get wheeled out on these chat shows

00:08:05.000 like Good Morning Britain to essentially push forward this narrative

00:08:09.000 that Britain is close to Nazi Germany and we're a white supremacist nation?

00:08:14.000 Well, we've seen the European research group in the Conservative Party be compared to Nazi Germany

00:08:20.000 and apartheid South Africa, which is just, it's absolutely remarkable.

00:08:24.000 And I think that more generally, and I wouldn't say that I look at Britain through rose-tinted spectacles,

00:08:28.000 I still think there's improvements to be made when it comes to racial equality.

00:08:31.000 I'm sure we'll discuss that later on in the conversation.

00:08:34.000 But if you just look at, you know, providing anti-discrimination protections

00:08:37.000 on the grounds of race, ethnicity and religion, Britain comfortably outperforms other EU countries,

00:08:44.000 such as, you know, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and Italy.

00:08:48.000 So you see post-Brexit Britain outperforms a string of EU member states

00:08:53.000 where you have, what I could say, Europhiles in the UK.

00:08:57.000 They look at the EU as a sort of, almost like a sort of haven of tolerance and openness.

00:09:03.000 Have they never been to France?

00:09:04.000 Well, and this comes to my point, that in France, actually, in France,

00:09:08.000 you have that sort of Republican model of, you know, colour-blind, egalitarianism,

00:09:13.000 which I consider a militant form of secularism.

00:09:16.000 And what that's actually produced is this mainstream political culture,

00:09:20.000 which doesn't want to acknowledge very real forms of racial and religious discrimination.

00:09:25.000 Now, Britain, for all its flaws, at least we have, in my view,

00:09:29.000 we have an infrastructure in place which actually takes equality of opportunity quite seriously.

00:09:34.000 In my view, the sort of discrimination in terms of its salience as an issue shows, in a way,

00:09:40.000 Britain's commitment to providing a more equal and fairer society.

00:09:46.000 You don't even have those debates in France.

00:09:47.000 So we have the Office for National Statistics, which shows outcomes, you know,

00:09:51.000 in terms of racial and ethnic disparities.

00:09:53.000 You don't even have that in France.

00:09:55.000 Well, I mean, that's not really a surprise, like Constantine said.

00:09:58.000 But, so, let's talk about what needs to be improved.

00:10:02.000 What do we need to work on?

00:10:03.000 What are the areas where we're not doing as well as we should be when it comes to integration?

00:10:08.000 I think that we have a serious problem when it comes to integrating newcomers in particular parts of the country. 1.00

00:10:13.000 I think last year we had the large-scale public disorder in Leicester, for example,

00:10:18.000 just primarily between Hindu and Muslim youths.

00:10:21.000 So I think that integration has almost become a political orphan, in a way.

00:10:25.000 It doesn't get talked about as much as it should by the two major political parties.

00:10:29.000 I think we have a Labour Party which talks a bit too much about difference and celebrating that.

00:10:34.000 I think the Conservative Party, in a way, just may be paralysed by its own history when it comes to race relations.

00:10:40.000 Not very comfortable when it comes to talking about matters of integration.

00:10:45.000 I think that in terms of the improvements, I'll give you an example.

00:10:48.000 I think in the labour market, names which are culturally distant,

00:10:53.000 maybe Constantine Kissin or Raki Basan, for example, they tend to fare that bit worse.

00:10:59.000 compared to traditionally English-sounding names.

00:11:02.000 I don't know, maybe Francis Foster, for example.

00:11:04.000 And that holds up in a number of studies, even when you control for work experience, skills and educational qualifications.

00:11:13.000 So something I argue for in the book is that we need to have more name-blind applications in the labour market.

00:11:18.000 People still ask, but what happens when you get to the interview?

00:11:20.000 They'll see that you're Asian or black.

00:11:22.000 But at least there, you have more of an opportunity to get to that stage and then you can prove yourself in person.

00:11:28.000 I think that would be an important development.

00:11:31.000 I think in terms of policing, and it's a very complex issue, policing more generally,

00:11:35.000 I think stop and search.

00:11:37.000 If the police genuinely believes that this is an effective instrument in terms of combating knife crime,

00:11:43.000 it needs to cultivate public support and communicate more with local communities

00:11:47.000 to say, we think this is genuinely needed, and then you can police by public consent.

00:11:54.000 So I think those kind of improvements would be most welcome in my view.

00:11:57.000 Raqib, can I ask you on the stop and search thing?

00:12:00.000 Because it's kind of hard to know.

00:12:02.000 Like you mentioned that there's a media narrative about Islamophobia

00:12:05.000 where non-Muslims are more persuaded by that narrative than Muslims.

00:12:09.000 How true is it that ethnic minority communities are outraged by the idea of stop and search?

00:12:15.000 Because we've also had people on the show who will tell you, you know, you go to a community,

00:12:22.000 let's say a black community area in London, a lot of the local population are really keen on stop and search 0.98

00:12:29.000 because it's their children that are being stabbed.

00:12:31.000 Absolutely. I think that when it comes to stop and search more generally, there are disparities, that's obvious.

00:12:38.000 But ultimately, if you're using that as an instrument to fight knife crime,

00:12:42.000 there's a degree to how equal you can be when it comes to policing.

00:12:46.000 You have to see where are the hotspots and, you know, what are the, how do you say,

00:12:50.000 the sociodemographic characteristics associated with a particular form of crime.

00:12:54.000 The reality is in London, young black males are disproportionately represented among perpetrators and victims of knife crime.

00:13:03.000 And that's naturally going to guide the way you police particular areas.

00:13:08.000 And I've even said that, you know, maybe we should have body worn cameras more widely in the Met.

00:13:13.000 So we just increase the sort of accountability and responsibility when it comes to policing.

00:13:18.000 But you're absolutely right that when it comes to law and order, you'll find some of the strongest conservative values

00:13:23.000 are within ethnic minority communities. And you have my own ethnic group, British Bangladeshis.

00:13:29.000 They have one of the highest rates of confidence in the local police force.

00:13:33.000 And that's a Muslim majority ethnic group as well, by the way.

00:13:36.000 So I think that when you actually look at law and order more generally, ethnic minorities, they ultimately want fairness.

00:13:43.000 But crucially, they care a great deal about the security and safety of their local communities.

00:13:50.000 And if you really wanted to go in the deep end and you wanted to talk about support for the death penalty,

00:13:55.000 I'd suspect actually it'd be higher in many ethnic and religious minority groups compared to the more secularised white British mainstream.

00:14:04.000 Well, definitely, definitely.

00:14:05.000 It's such a good point because my mum's an ethnic minority and she'd kill about a third of this population if she had her way. 1.00

00:14:10.000 You know, so it's very true. They tend to be far more punitive when it comes to law and order.

00:14:16.000 But I also think that the way we talk about, you know, talking about ethnic minorities,

00:14:20.000 which encompasses someone like my mother, who's a first generation immigrant from South America.

00:14:25.000 Sure.

00:14:26.000 And also, for instance, a third generation immigrant from the Caribbean or from West Africa.

00:14:31.000 Absolutely.

00:14:32.000 Let's talk a little bit more in specifics.

00:14:34.000 So what do we know about each group?

00:14:38.000 It depends on which metric you're looking at.

00:14:40.000 I think, firstly, I'll make the point that the BAME acronym are absolutely useless and redundant, in my view,

00:14:46.000 in terms of understanding the reality on the ground in modern Britain.

00:14:50.000 Now people are trying to wheel out this global majority, you know, these kind of phrases to try and replace it.

00:14:56.000 The reality is that ethnic and racial minorities, there may be certain values that they share across the board.

00:15:02.000 One value that they'd often share is that, you know, irrespective of which group you belong to, being an ethnic minority in the UK,

00:15:08.000 you're far better positioned than being an ethnic minority in other countries such as France, Germany and the Netherlands, 0.98

00:15:13.000 and the United States as well, something that I touch upon in the book.

00:15:18.000 But if you actually look at educational performance, how are groups performing at school, labour market integration, trust in public institutions,

00:15:27.000 there's a great deal of variance between different ethnic and racial minorities.

00:15:32.000 I'll give you one statistic.

00:15:33.000 If you look at children aged up to 15 years, you know, the rate of lone parent households that they live in,

00:15:41.000 the rate of lone parent households when it comes to children of that age of Indian origin, it's 6%.

00:15:48.000 6% live in lone parent households.

00:15:50.000 That goes up to 63% for their peers of black Caribbean origin.

00:15:53.000 So you can see there, they would all come under a collective BAME umbrella term.

00:15:58.000 But you can see there's huge disparities there.

00:16:01.000 There's also huge disparities when it comes to performing at school, especially pupils of Chinese origin.

00:16:07.000 If you were to compare them with gypsy Roma children, huge disparities.

00:16:12.000 But they technically all fall under the ethnic minority label.

00:16:16.000 And I think that that's the point I make, that actually you see that on certain social and economic metrics,

00:16:22.000 you have certain non-white ethnic minorities performing better than the white British mainstream,

00:16:27.000 which is why I'm not sure how useful white privilege theories are in the modern British context.

00:16:33.000 But there's very clear differences between those groups and that's something I really wanted to underline in the book,

00:16:38.000 because then that moves the conversation towards what helps to shape life chances in modern day Britain.

00:16:44.000 In my opinion, some people may find this quite controversial.

00:16:47.000 I don't think race is the influential determinant of life chances that many people portray it to be.

00:16:53.000 And what is?

00:16:54.000 I think family structure is a huge one for me.

00:16:58.000 You know, the kind of values which are cultivated in the household, the degree of family stability.

00:17:03.000 That's not just family structure, that's culture what you're talking about.

00:17:06.000 That's also culture, family structure and culture.

00:17:08.000 Right.

00:17:09.000 But there's a degree of overlap possibly between the two.

00:17:11.000 Oh, massive, massive overlap.

00:17:12.000 But I'm keen to emphasize that point because it's not just about, you know, more people staying together.

00:17:16.000 It's also about what are you teaching your children.

00:17:19.000 Exactly.

00:17:20.000 And that's very important.

00:17:21.000 And I think that also shapes your attitudes towards marriage as an institution.

00:17:25.000 Some people may be more individualistic when it comes to approaching marriage.

00:17:29.000 Other people might think, well, actually, there's a great deal of self-sacrifice required here, but I'm willing to take that on.

00:17:34.000 That might be shaped by their faith or their cultural values.

00:17:37.000 But I think that there is that overlap between family stability and culture.

00:17:41.000 But crucially, when it comes to culture, for example, how is education valued in the household?

00:17:47.000 If you're looking at the local community, what are the markers of social status?

00:17:51.000 I think we have some very problematic subcultures in London, if truth be told, which actually glorify the glorification of violence, hyper-materialism, and also cultural values towards outer wedlock births.

00:18:05.000 One of the strongest predictors of lone parent households, whether or not children are born in wedlock or not.

00:18:09.000 Now, the reality is in certain ethnic communities, ethnic minority communities, having children outside of marriage is very controversial to be frowned upon.

00:18:19.000 In other groups, it's almost become the norm, if we're being absolutely honest.

00:18:23.000 I think those kind of cultural dynamics, they may be controversial, and some people may find it to be sensitive to talk about.

00:18:29.000 But I do think that it's worth having that conversation in terms of how they shape life chances and the progression of young people more generally.

00:18:37.000 Yeah, well, definitely, sorry, Francis, definitely the case, because, I mean, if you want, this is what always bothers me about this patronizing attitude to ethnic minorities, where it's like, no one actually cares about outcomes.

00:18:53.100 People care about how good they look saying things.

00:18:55.660 Absolutely.

00:18:55.900 Whereas if you actually cared about outcomes, you would go, well, as you say, you know, the BAME acronym, which is ridiculous, incorporates all sorts of different groups with different sets of behaviors and different outcomes.

00:19:07.140 So what might we observe would be a good way to behave, and might we not suggest that most people should behave that way?

00:19:15.160 Do you see what I mean?

00:19:16.340 But we don't have that conversation.

00:19:18.560 We don't, because I think there's some people that are paralyzed by cultural and moral relativism.

00:19:22.900 Relativism.

00:19:23.860 Now, let's be absolutely clear.

00:19:25.220 Certain cultural values, in my view, are just better than others.

00:19:29.460 Boo! 0.83

00:19:30.260 That's the truth of it, right?

00:19:32.460 And I think if you really, and I'll make this point, if you really care about young black lives, especially in inner city London, you would talk about family structure and community culture that little bit more, in my opinion.

00:19:45.160 And I think it's very interesting, because when you're talking about those disparities that we were referring to earlier,

00:19:48.740 if you look at school outcomes, level of educational attainment, pupils of black African origin are now performing better than the white British mainstream.

00:19:59.140 Their co-racial peers of black Caribbean origin are performing worse than the white British mainstream. 1.00

00:20:04.740 So it can't be race.

00:20:06.280 It can't be simply a matter of racial discrimination.

00:20:09.260 I mean, that would be bizarre to suggest that.

00:20:11.340 But we do have people who suggest that.

00:20:13.240 And I think that's where you have to look at sort of family values, community attitudes towards education.

00:20:20.600 I think parental assertiveness.

00:20:22.900 I think a lot of people talk about, you know, children need to be, you know, they need to be encouraged to be creative and innovative, you know, free thinking and all the rest of it.

00:20:31.260 That's all well and good.

00:20:32.220 But they need to have a strong base.

00:20:33.640 There has to be that sense of discipline and order in the household.

00:20:36.340 And there needs to be an understanding that, in my opinion, in the mainstream, I think there's far too many parents who want to be their kid's mate, right?

00:20:46.260 And listen, my mum's my best friend.

00:20:48.180 But there's also a clear understanding that within that friendship, there's a very clear parent-child relationship.

00:20:53.540 And that's based on order and hierarchy.

00:20:55.440 Now, those kind of terms sound very old-fashioned and reactionary, but I think they're necessary when it comes to talking about, you know, keeping your children on the straight and narrow and making sure that they progress well in life.

00:21:07.980 And I think that these kind of debates on the left, they're shunned, if truth be told.

00:21:13.020 A lot of these values are seen as almost oppressive.

00:21:16.320 And I think that's something that needs to change.

00:21:20.140 I agree with you it needs to change.

00:21:21.560 Why is that?

00:21:22.500 Why are we so loathe to engage in these types of conversations when the reality is we all know it's basic common sense?

00:21:33.100 Well, of course, we know it's basic common sense.

00:21:35.040 But I think that many people, they'd rather, they're more interested in appearing virtuous in the public domain.

00:21:41.160 Now, I've never been interested in that, as you can probably tell.

00:21:45.860 Truth be told, I get vilified for making some of these arguments.

00:21:49.340 And I think especially a real problem is middle-class progressivism in modern-day Britain, because these are people who, I think they almost use racial identity politics as a way to deflect attention from their own position of socioeconomic privilege.

00:22:04.080 Many people are actually insecure about their privilege.

00:22:07.280 I just think, listen, enjoy your privilege, you know, but don't, you know, don't get in the way of effective social policy, right?

00:22:14.500 And if you are insecure about it, I don't know, maybe see a therapist, you know, sort that out yourself.

00:22:19.600 And I think a real problem here is that what racial identity politics does, it offers them an opportunity to appear rebellious without risking the destabilisation of their own class-based interests and advantages.

00:22:34.380 When I think, in my view, the left still doesn't talk enough about class, class-based barriers.

00:22:41.600 We do live in a fairly unequal country.

00:22:43.960 I think we should make that point.

00:22:45.340 And I think more generally, when you're looking at these outcomes, I've talked a great deal about family structure, community norms.

00:22:52.300 I think geography comes into it.

00:22:55.200 I think that there's many communities which are predominantly white British.

00:22:58.780 They're just, they're cut off.

00:23:00.300 They're isolated.

00:23:01.180 They're left behind.

00:23:02.420 They're certainly not part of the digital economy, you could say.

00:23:05.160 And they're really lacking the sort of social infrastructure you'd need in order for young people to succeed and maximise their potential.

00:23:13.540 So I think at the moment we have this over-focus on race and we're largely overlooking, in my view, very important factors which shape life chances in modern Britain.

00:23:23.680 And there's the familiar conversation that we always have about white privilege, which has been, like a lot of this stuff, imported directly from the States.

00:23:33.520 Oh, absolutely.

00:23:34.320 You know, just placed on this country.

00:23:37.460 And you just go, this bears absolutely no reflection on what is really going on here.

00:23:45.420 Well, I've seen blogs about white privilege published on NHS websites, which I just think is absolutely remarkable. 0.97

00:23:52.060 Because if you travel around the country and you see where the NHS is really crumbling, it's in those left-behind, impoverished, predominantly white British communities. 0.99

00:24:01.040 If you're going to go into those communities and start lecturing them about their racial privilege, it's going to fall on deaf ears.

00:24:06.300 Or actually, they're going to find it quite offensive.

00:24:08.360 They think, I'm actually really struggling in my local community here.

00:24:11.500 And the NHS services here are not particularly good.

00:24:14.180 And I think that, once again, when it comes to those kind of theories, I think they're hugely divisive.

00:24:21.980 But it's pseudo-intellectualism.

00:24:23.800 It doesn't really give you much of a grounding to truly understand why those ethnic and racial disparities exist in our country.

00:24:32.160 And I'll give you another example.

00:24:33.540 We've talked before about the various grooming gang scandals.

00:24:37.880 You know, people want to talk about power structures, you know, structures of oppression, all the rest of it.

00:24:42.460 You can very clearly see where the power dynamics lied in those interactions.

00:24:47.840 There are very clear cases of group-based child sexual abuse, which are also grossly mismanaged by public institutions that prioritise political correctness and racial and religious sensitivities over the bread and butter of protecting the most vulnerable.

00:25:02.480 Where's the presence of white privilege in those particular cases?

00:25:05.160 Because I don't see much evidence of it.

00:25:07.820 We'll be back with the interview in one minute.

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00:26:15.880 Rakib, do you think that, well, you say that we live in an unequal country,

00:26:19.720 and I think that inequality is actually not race-specific.

00:26:22.800 I mean, there will be outliers, of course.

00:26:24.360 Do you think we underestimate how well we're doing when it comes to race relations,

00:26:32.220 having a very multi-ethnic society, actually getting along?

00:26:37.140 Because most other parts of the world, when you have multi-ethnic societies,

00:26:41.060 you kind of have to use a lot of violence to keep things in check, actually,

00:26:44.980 or violence will erupt naturally.

00:26:47.980 We've stayed away from that.

00:26:49.480 Do you think we underestimate how well we're doing?

00:26:51.320 I think that there's lots of positives to take.

00:26:55.400 I think that we've made significant progress when it comes to racial equality

00:26:58.500 over the last 25 years.

00:27:00.640 The majority of ethnic minority people, according to a recent report published by British Future,

00:27:07.260 which marked the 75th anniversary of Windrush, showed that.

00:27:10.800 It was around two in three ethnic minority people believed that we'd made significant progress

00:27:15.100 when it comes to racial equality, and four in five believe that when it comes to being an ethnic minority,

00:27:22.320 it's better to live in the UK compared to France, Germany, and the United States.

00:27:26.760 And I think that it's really important to understand that and appreciate that,

00:27:31.780 because many ethnic minority people, as you know, they have family in those countries as well.

00:27:35.900 So they have sort of international family networks.

00:27:38.160 I'm sure they have, you know, within my own family network, we have discussions about these kind of things.

00:27:44.520 So, and generally ethnic minorities, people make the point that they're fairly well educated,

00:27:49.060 so they're able to form their own independent opinion on these issues.

00:27:52.440 It's really interesting that I flagged this data, and in my view,

00:27:56.500 self-hating pseudo-intellectuals of Twitter said,

00:28:00.560 oh, but how would they know?

00:28:01.640 They haven't lived in those countries and all the rest of it. 0.99

00:28:04.100 So, sort of nice people's racism, you know, the ethnic minority Brits, 0.99

00:28:07.960 they're not able to formulate their own opinions on their own issues.

00:28:10.120 They don't fly anywhere, yeah.

00:28:11.540 Absolutely.

00:28:12.920 When actually, they probably fly more,

00:28:14.920 because of the internationalised nature of their family networks.

00:28:17.720 Right.

00:28:18.460 And I think that in terms of, you know, the progress that we've made,

00:28:22.620 I think that we should be proud of that.

00:28:24.300 That should be a source of national pride.

00:28:26.480 But saying that, we did have, you know, for example,

00:28:29.060 last year's large-scale public disorder in Leicester.

00:28:31.620 Yes.

00:28:31.960 We've seen what's happened in Peckham as well.

00:28:34.340 Yes.

00:28:34.700 With that.

00:28:35.380 So, tell everybody, because some of our audience will follow that.

00:28:38.160 Absolutely.

00:28:38.720 So, there's an unfortunate incident at Peckham Hair and Cosmetics.

00:28:43.280 Now, it's obviously not an establishment that I'm not familiar with for all this reason.

00:28:48.420 But, so essentially, it's an Asian-owned business.

00:28:51.040 There's a very interesting dynamic in Peckham,

00:28:52.760 where there's far more black residents than Asian people that live in the area.

00:28:58.380 And by the way, just for our American viewers, sorry to interject.

00:29:01.020 Sure, no, no.

00:29:01.560 What you mean by Asian is people…

00:29:03.640 Okay, so what I mean by Asian is people of subcontinental heritage, South Asian heritage.

00:29:07.580 So, we're talking about India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka as well, those kind of countries.

00:29:12.220 But what's interesting is that a lot of the businesses that cater for the specific cultural needs,

00:29:17.120 you could say, for black residents living in the area are actually Asian-owned.

00:29:20.800 And so, what happened, unfortunately, at this establishment was that there was a black lady 1.00

00:29:27.760 who was accused of taking goods that she hadn't paid for.

00:29:33.080 Apparently, she was upset with the establishment's refund policy.

00:29:38.540 And, unfortunately, this led to a physical altercation with the Asian owner of the business,

00:29:46.460 who is of a Muslim, has a Muslim background.

00:29:50.200 And there was a great deal of tension.

00:29:52.980 Afterwards, there were protests outside the establishment.

00:29:56.080 And that included racially motivated slurs being left at the front of the establishment. 1.00

00:30:04.840 Go to hell, Patel. 0.99

00:30:07.700 There's a reference to parasitic merchants have to be rooted out, the local community. 0.99

00:30:13.200 Sort of echoing the kind of vilification of Asian business owners by Idi Amin, the Ugandan dictator,

00:30:21.060 who expelled Asians, only gave them 90 days before they could leave the country.

00:30:27.480 So, I think when you look at those kind of incidents, it's very interesting for me,

00:30:32.960 because I think the biggest thing from that particular incident was that we had this sort of

00:30:37.780 de facto decriminalization of lower-level crime in many urban areas.

00:30:43.200 The country has a shoplifting epidemic, in my view.

00:30:47.200 And I think that was the big takeaway from that.

00:30:49.640 But you could see that people saw that through a racial lens.

00:30:51.820 And that was understandable, because there have been similar episodes in places such as Birmingham,

00:30:57.880 especially the Lozels area, where there's a great deal of disillusionment, you could say.

00:31:04.400 And I'd go as far as saying resentment within black communities,

00:31:07.540 especially of African-Caribbean heritage there.

00:31:10.180 You know, businesses being bought up by Asian-origin entrepreneurs.

00:31:15.240 And then, actually, you know, there's a shift in the sort of ethnic and racial ownership of businesses there.

00:31:21.500 And then there's sort of accusations of, you know, many of the shoplifters belonging to the African-Caribbean population.

00:31:29.180 Asian shopkeepers being accused of not treating their black patrons and customers very well.

00:31:37.200 So you could see that those kind of complaints emerged in Peckham as well.

00:31:42.300 So I think it shows that there are racial tensions which are obviously involved.

00:31:46.480 But I think that the broader or rather the central problem for me is how there's a real lack of local neighbourhood policing in areas with a high concentration of shops.

00:31:57.600 And all too often that leads to, well, people can, you can call them customers.

00:32:02.400 But in my view, these are people who are taking liberties, to be honest.

00:32:06.880 And many businesses are already feeling the pinch because of the cost of living crisis.

00:32:12.040 They're now having to deal with this de facto decriminalisation where many shoplifters, to be honest, get away with what they're doing.

00:32:19.680 Well, that was the curious thing to me because you know how when you're a kid, you go to the playground, you get into, you know, scuff with another kid or whatever.

00:32:29.980 Your mum will be the one telling you off and his mum will be the one telling him off, right?

00:32:33.860 What I found odd about this is like this is someone who is committing a crime who is essentially a representative of their community by virtue of their skin colour. 0.96

00:32:44.500 It's inevitable.

00:32:45.260 People will see it like that.

00:32:47.180 What I find interesting is why the community doesn't say, well, this person is a criminal.

00:32:52.440 They don't represent us. 0.93

00:32:53.440 In fact, we're going to tell them off and get them on the straight and narrow so that people of our background aren't stealing things from shops.

00:33:00.340 Why is no one having that conversation?

00:33:01.700 I think there are some black British individuals who did flag that, but they weren't especially high in number.

00:33:07.040 Yeah.

00:33:07.280 And I think what that really shows is that there's a great deal of what I call it to be racial tribalism.

00:33:12.040 But the truly toxic thing about this racial tribalism is that you're ultimately asking for preferential treatment over forms of illegal behaviour.

00:33:25.600 And I think what was quite remarkable was how, and by the way, the lady in question behaved quite aggressively towards the shopkeeper before she was apprehended by him.

00:33:35.500 And I think it was just absolutely remarkable that she was being portrayed as the victim when she was engaging in behaviour which was deeply inappropriate.

00:33:44.880 And I think that what really concerns me is that you have people who look to excuse deeply inappropriate forms of behaviour because that particular person might share their racial or ethnic background.

00:33:58.820 And I think that's a very serious problem.

00:34:01.120 I think that social cohesion is at its healthiest and at its strongest when people are willing to face up to very uncomfortable realities within their own racial, ethnic and religious communities.

00:34:14.160 And I think that's something that I'd like to think I have quite an impressive record on.

00:34:18.460 I've written a great deal about Islamist extremism and the threat it poses to modern Britain and more widely the Western world. 0.99

00:34:27.260 I've also talked about attitudes towards women in more closed off elements of British Bangladeshi communities.

00:34:35.700 And that's not to say there's not good going on in those communities as well.

00:34:38.640 I've written a great deal about that.

00:34:40.060 But I think if there are problematic trends within your own racial, ethnic and religious community, you should flag them.

00:34:48.900 That's the truth.

00:34:49.700 Because other people who may well see those trends, they may feel uncomfortable.

00:34:53.440 They don't want to be accused of being racist or Islamophobic.

00:34:57.880 But I think you should take it upon yourself.

00:34:59.740 And what I saw with Peckham, actually, you saw people excusing this behaviour, expressing solid...

00:35:05.960 But what was really interesting, you had Runnymede Trust, an organisation I used to respect a great deal when I was growing up.

00:35:10.880 The so-called leading, independent, race equality think tank in the country, expressing solidarity with the lady in that particular episode.

00:35:20.480 With the shoplister.

00:35:21.980 And I just think that, what about the Asian-owned business?

00:35:27.660 What about the Asian business?

00:35:30.000 Forget about everyone's race.

00:35:32.660 What about expressing solidarity with the shop owner whose shop is being robbed?

00:35:37.400 And expressing condemnation for the person who's robbing the shop.

00:35:40.980 But the shopkeeper also face racial discrimination, which we talked about as well.

00:35:45.360 So if you're the leading independent race equality think tank, you'd at least flag those issues, those racist messages.

00:35:52.140 So reading between the lines of all of this, Ricky, what I'm hearing from you is you're saying we've done really well,

00:35:58.200 but actually one of the problems we are having is inter-ethnic minority tribal conflict.

00:36:04.500 Absolutely. I think so.

00:36:05.340 And I think that, and this is something that I hope not hate.

00:36:09.800 Usually I'm not the biggest fan, if truth be told.

00:36:11.900 But they did do a really good study during the pandemic, which showed that ethnic minorities are twice more likely to agree than disagree

00:36:18.720 with the statement that social tensions are stronger between ethnic minorities than between non-white groups and the white mainstream.

00:36:29.280 And so I think many ethnic minority people are fully aware of those tensions between non-white groups.

00:36:34.680 You saw it in Leicester, primarily between Hindu and Muslim youths of South Asian origin.

00:36:39.480 And I think that's the real problem.

00:36:41.540 And I think that there's this import, we're talking about importation of US racial identity politics.

00:36:45.940 There's also an importation of foreign territorial disputes from the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent,

00:36:52.920 communal tensions from South Asia as well.

00:36:56.100 And that's very troubling because what it does, it does, if that's not addressed,

00:37:01.260 social cohesion can unravel very quickly in the more diverse parts of the country.

00:37:06.180 And you were saying earlier about Singapore, for example, very authoritarian when it comes to law and order.

00:37:14.020 But that's quite a successful multi-ethnic, multi-faith democracy, which is very economically productive as well.

00:37:21.620 And I do think that in more diverse parts of the country where they're very competitive local economies,

00:37:27.900 I do think you need strong localised law and order just to keep things in check.

00:37:32.340 And I think currently that's missing from many parts of the country.

00:37:35.180 And the other problem is that we're just not willing to talk about it.

00:37:39.820 Because when we talk about tensions, it's always white-black, white-Asian. 1.00

00:37:44.300 Absolutely. It's very binary.

00:37:45.660 Yeah. And we don't talk about this. Why don't we talk about it?

00:37:49.440 I think many people can't comprehend. I don't think they recognise it.

00:37:53.120 I don't think many people can comprehend it.

00:37:54.680 They can't comprehend that there may be racial tensions which don't involve white people.

00:37:59.840 And I think that, you know, which coming from Luton and being raised there, I find bonkers.

00:38:06.700 But many people are genuinely of that mindset. They're of that view.

00:38:10.060 Or simply, it could just be ignorance. They're not truly aware of it.

00:38:13.740 Do you know what? I will tell you this.

00:38:15.360 Until we started the show, I, having not thought about it very much, believed there was such a thing as the black community.

00:38:24.560 It's a myth.

00:38:25.520 Yeah.

00:38:25.880 It's a myth.

00:38:26.660 But it's only when you start to go, wait, Afro-Caribbean people are very different to African people. 0.99

00:38:32.980 But it's actually a form of, I mean, it's not racism per se, but it's a form of ignorance about the complexity of all of these different groups.

00:38:40.200 Absolutely. And it reminds me of a study that I did a couple of years ago which showed that one in six people of black Caribbean origin have an unfavourable view of people of black African origin.

00:38:50.500 Yeah.

00:38:50.680 One in six is quite high. I mean, it's around 16%.

00:38:53.920 And I think that really shows the tensions within the black British population as well.

00:39:00.520 And I think that, you know, it's similar to black community, Muslim community.

00:39:04.580 And people know that there's some denominational tensions within the British Muslim population.

00:39:10.560 There's also ethnic tensions as well.

00:39:12.740 And there's also class-related tensions within these so-called communities.

00:39:21.300 So, and much of this is overlooked.

00:39:24.280 And I think many people, and I think the biggest problem is really that there's many members of our political establishment,

00:39:31.020 they're either not understanding of these dynamics, they don't understand it, or they know about it, but they don't want to raise it.

00:39:38.400 They don't want to raise it because that would mean they'd need to have some very uncomfortable conversations in their local sort of surgeries and all the rest of it.

00:39:48.100 So they'd rather ignore it.

00:39:49.640 And it's far easier just to talk about racism and bigotry in the English countryside.

00:39:55.060 Yeah.

00:39:55.680 And I remember once we had a little boy in my class when I was teaching, and he was stealing.

00:40:03.320 That's what he was doing.

00:40:04.340 It happens in school.

00:40:05.400 And I remember my teaching assistant was Nigerian.

00:40:10.320 And so we caught this boy, and we gave him a dressing down, all the rest of it.

00:40:15.400 So you shouldn't do this.

00:40:16.560 Brought mum in, had a chat.

00:40:18.120 The problem was solved.

00:40:19.580 And I remember when he walked out of my classroom once, she just turned around and looked at me and went,

00:40:23.940 this is what Congolese people do.

00:40:27.380 The teaching assistant, not the mother.

00:40:29.360 Not the mother.

00:40:30.620 No, but the teaching assistant said to me, this is what...

00:40:32.600 The Nigerian heritage teaching assistant.

00:40:34.640 Saying, this is what Congolese people do. 1.00

00:40:36.500 They're all thieves. 0.98

00:40:39.720 It also doesn't come as a surprise to me, though. 0.97

00:40:42.320 Yeah.

00:40:42.800 It doesn't come as a surprise.

00:40:43.480 And that's the thing.

00:40:44.200 Even with the wider black African category, you're talking about first generation, well-established Christian migrants from West Africa.

00:40:53.240 Yeah.

00:40:53.420 You're also talking about, you know, maybe recently arrived refugees who follow Islam coming from countries such as Somalia, fleeing civil unrest.

00:41:02.060 But they're all technically in the same ethnic category.

00:41:04.380 Yeah.

00:41:04.640 Which is incredibly diverse.

00:41:06.140 It is.

00:41:06.920 It is.

00:41:07.340 And really, I think the problem comes as well, is then when you put identity politics on top of that, it just toxifies the whole debate, doesn't it?

00:41:17.300 Because part of the problem, if we go back to Peckham, is that people are seeing themselves as one group against another group.

00:41:23.280 Oh, no, no, no, absolutely.

00:41:24.360 And I have a black friend of Nigerian origin.

00:41:27.900 He talked to me about anti-blackness in South Asian communities.

00:41:32.820 I said, never mind anti-blackness.

00:41:34.480 I mean, you have some, say, South Asian families.

00:41:36.940 They'll reject their child's, you know, proposed choice of marital spouse on the grounds of his or her skin colour.

00:41:43.900 They might belong to the same ethnic and racial group.

00:41:46.660 They're not even interested in understanding about their character, personality, career, vision for the future.

00:41:50.500 You know, if they're not happy with their skin colour, oh, you know, I don't want my grandchildren to be too dark. 1.00

00:41:56.880 These are the kind of sentiments that do exist in modern Britain.

00:42:00.120 And these are tensions within the same ethnic and racial groups.

00:42:04.660 So it doesn't come as a surprise to me.

00:42:06.400 You're talking about the Nigerian heritage teaching assistant who, unfortunately, didn't have a high opinion of people of Congolese origin.

00:42:13.540 It just doesn't come as a surprise to me because within the African continent, you know, we know it can be incredibly,

00:42:20.620 the sort of tribal tensions, you know, opinions of other people who may originate from a different region of Africa.

00:42:27.040 Everyone hates their neighbours.

00:42:28.280 It's quite normal.

00:42:28.940 You know, if you look around any part of the world.

00:42:31.920 So I think that generally, if you're talking about how we're a relatively successful multiracial democracy, I would make that point.

00:42:39.140 But I do think these kind of tensions, they're often overlooked and that they are problems in terms of, you know,

00:42:46.960 maintaining social cohesion, hyper-diverse areas.

00:42:50.560 Many of our politicians simply won't like to talk about it because it's far easier just to talk about, you know,

00:42:56.060 white privilege or talk about racism in the white British mainstream.

00:43:00.640 And often I'll make this point that some of the sharpest social tensions in our urban areas do not involve white British people at all.

00:43:09.780 That's the only way we're going to stay independent and create content that you won't be able to find anywhere else.

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00:44:32.840 I think a lot of the problem comes from the fact is that we're not comfortable discussing issues or problems

00:44:40.900 that are actually live at the moment.

00:44:43.880 It's far easier to talk about issues or problems that were more relevant 40 years ago.

00:44:50.000 So, for instance, talking about white supremacy,

00:44:52.600 of course there are white supremacists still in this country.

00:44:54.720 But if you think 40 years ago when I grew up in South London,

00:44:57.840 there were the NF, there were the BNP.

00:44:59.840 These people were mainstream.

00:45:01.060 There were outside football matches handing out leaflets.

00:45:04.360 The NF, I don't think they even exist anymore.

00:45:06.620 No, I mean, I think that...

00:45:08.840 I'll give you another example.

00:45:10.340 The University of Leicester will be involved in a project on rural racism.

00:45:15.480 And I just think, did you not just see what happened on your doorstep last year?

00:45:19.400 I would have thought that you'd maybe focus your time, energy and efforts on communal tensions in Leicester,

00:45:26.080 in the inner cities of Leicester.

00:45:27.580 It seemed to be more focused on so-called racist attitudes in the English countryside and rural communities.

00:45:34.840 I just would think that if the University of Leicester, they would maybe have different priorities.

00:45:39.280 If they wanted to do research, if they wanted to do work on how to maintain and strengthen social cohesion,

00:45:45.380 they'd focus more on what's going on on their doorstep.

00:45:49.240 And I think it really shows that it's comfort zone.

00:45:52.520 It's comfort zone activity, isn't it?

00:45:54.700 It's far easier to talk about, oh, you know, what's the level of racism in Blaby or Odeby or this or that and all the rest of it.

00:46:02.040 You know, the sort of more rural outskirts, you know, rural parts of Leicestershire.

00:46:05.380 As opposed to actually talking about, oh, the spilling of subcontinental style communalism on the streets of an English regional city.

00:46:13.760 I would have thought they'd have been more likely to focus on that.

00:46:16.400 But then I also know how far gone some elements of the academic sector are on these kind of issues.

00:46:21.980 And the problem is, is that it's almost impossible, really, for a white upper middle class person to talk about this.

00:46:30.480 Because there's a very easy way to shut them down.

00:46:32.780 And we know what that word is.

00:46:34.220 And they can't take part in the debate or the discussion.

00:46:37.260 Yeah, no, I agree.

00:46:38.520 And I think that that's one of the things I really don't like.

00:46:41.380 You know, when we're having these debates on sort of diversity, equality and inclusion,

00:46:45.340 they're actually deeply exclusionary of white men more generally.

00:46:50.380 I think it's very interesting.

00:46:51.460 You saw that with the Royal Air Force.

00:46:53.280 They wanted to boost the diversity of their, you know, sort of their recruitment.

00:46:58.460 They wanted to appeal more to women and ethnic minorities.

00:47:02.320 But in doing so, they actually found that they were unlawfully discriminating against white men. 0.98

00:47:07.260 And there's one recruitment officer in the RAF that referred to useless white male pilots. 0.96

00:47:11.620 A very specific form of discrimination focused on race and sex.

00:47:16.880 And I think that what it really shows, I think that the diversity politics, in my view,

00:47:22.580 is incredibly divisive, as opposed to being inclusive, I think that is hugely exclusionary.

00:47:31.380 And I think that you see, and it's even things like safe spaces, which is very much an import from the United States.

00:47:37.240 This is modern day segregation.

00:47:38.720 And then you're seeing that being proposed in Britain.

00:47:41.500 And I just don't want to see that take root at all, especially on university campuses,

00:47:46.100 which I think is very much focused on the sort of free flow of, you know, different ideas, information exchange, and all the rest of it.

00:47:53.260 For students to be divided, to talk about sensitive matters of history, to be separated along racial lines,

00:47:59.740 I just don't think that's right at all.

00:48:01.140 And coming back to your point about community tensions between different ethnic groups,

00:48:06.140 it sounds like what you see as the answer to that is essentially a robust enforcement of the law,

00:48:14.060 combined with an equality under the law.

00:48:16.380 In other words, it doesn't really matter what your skin colour is.

00:48:18.580 If you commit a crime, the police are going to be there, and they're going to deal with you.

00:48:22.000 Is that kind of...

00:48:22.760 No, absolutely.

00:48:23.460 Listen, I'll make this point.

00:48:25.120 For example, when I talked about earlier about colourism within South Asian communities,

00:48:29.020 unfortunately, you're just going to have those kind of old-fashioned attitudes among, you know,

00:48:32.720 certain members of a particular generation.

00:48:35.320 I'm not saying that the police should get involved in those issues.

00:48:38.100 No.

00:48:38.340 But I think we should be aware that racism and bigotry can exist in all sorts of communities.

00:48:42.980 I think that's the point that I'd make.

00:48:45.380 And I think that there's a concerted effort to deflect attention away from those problematic attitudes,

00:48:51.820 and I don't think that's right.

00:48:53.820 Because I do think sunlight is the best disinfectant.

00:48:56.060 I think maybe if you expose those kind of attitudes, maybe you helped to facilitate the social change

00:49:01.440 that you'd like to see.

00:49:02.940 So we're not talking about law and order enforcement in that area.

00:49:06.120 Not in that area, but you're talking about clashes on the streets.

00:49:08.740 Oh, no, no, clashes on the street.

00:49:09.940 I'll make that point with Leicester.

00:49:11.520 The local constabulary there was woefully underprepared for something like that.

00:49:16.280 You had a lot of out-of-town troublemakers as well from London and Birmingham.

00:49:19.820 So we also have to talk about how are police forces communicating with one another across the country

00:49:24.200 when it comes to those kind of incidents.

00:49:26.660 So the reality, if you are supportive of modern-day diversity,

00:49:31.980 I do think there has to be a degree of conservatism when it comes to law and order.

00:49:35.320 I think the issue that you have is that you have a lot of pro-diversity advocates.

00:49:39.860 And something we haven't talked about yet is immigration as well.

00:49:42.560 I think that if you really want to maintain high levels of social solidarity

00:49:46.560 in a multi-ethnic, multi-racial, multi-faith society such as ours,

00:49:51.140 you need to reduce the pace of social change that we're seeing in many parts of the country.

00:49:56.340 And a lot of people think, God, how could Racket possibly say this?

00:49:58.540 He associates himself with the left.

00:50:00.660 But I also think that I also care about sustaining the welfare state.

00:50:04.340 And the reality is if you want to make sure that you have an all-encompassing,

00:50:09.840 well-funded welfare state in place,

00:50:11.780 I think that you need to have a stable national membership.

00:50:15.120 And that requires having a sensible and well-ordered immigration system.

00:50:18.920 I also think it means you need to have an asylum system 0.99

00:50:21.060 which prioritises those who are very much in need,

00:50:24.180 the world's most vulnerable peoples.

00:50:26.080 We're not seeing that with the small boats emergency on the English south coast.

00:50:29.720 That's very much male-dominated.

00:50:31.880 I think in 2022, two in three small boats migrants were males aged 18 to 39.

00:50:38.840 Many were coming from countries such as Albania.

00:50:42.380 Albania hasn't had a civil war since 1997.

00:50:46.060 So I think that what I'm basically getting at is that

00:50:48.460 in order to have a truly successful democracy,

00:50:52.180 which is diverse and advanced,

00:50:54.900 you need to be conservative in certain areas,

00:50:57.100 namely immigration and law and order.

00:50:59.680 And this was always, you know, this was the left's thing.

00:51:02.880 This was always what the left were talking about,

00:51:05.580 protecting workers' rights by reducing immigration.

00:51:08.680 Supply and demand.

00:51:09.720 That's why there was that entire branch of the left who voted for Brexit.

00:51:14.860 And also as well, and this is what we don't like to talk about,

00:51:18.280 but a lot of immigrants from my own family,

00:51:22.060 from immigrants that I've spoken to,

00:51:25.020 not too keen on immigration.

00:51:26.660 Especially illegal immigrants. 0.98

00:51:27.580 They're not keen on illegal immigration

00:51:28.840 because many went through the correct assessment.

00:51:31.080 But who is keen on illegal immigration?

00:51:31.760 But I think the point is that first-generation migrants 0.99

00:51:34.060 may be especially sensitive to illegal immigration

00:51:36.440 because they've gone through the proper procedures

00:51:38.180 where it may even included English language assessments.

00:51:41.820 They may have to have submitted various forms of documentation

00:51:44.520 before legally relocating.

00:51:47.100 I get triggered by the concept that these people just think,

00:51:49.920 oh yeah, people should be allowed to come in illegally.

00:51:52.520 Yeah, so they fulfilled their obligations

00:51:57.700 before legally relocating to the UK.

00:52:00.580 So when they see the scale of illegal immigration

00:52:02.820 on the English South Coast,

00:52:04.620 they may well view it as a form of queue jumping.

00:52:06.980 Yeah, and they may be especially sensitive to it.

00:52:09.840 And I think more generally when it comes to immigration,

00:52:12.980 I wrote a piece for Unheard,

00:52:15.500 which I made the point that it's actually Labour's Asian origin heartlands

00:52:19.100 who are also quite conservative when it comes to immigration.

00:52:22.520 The majority of voters in those constituencies,

00:52:25.100 including mine of Luton North,

00:52:27.060 they think immigration is too high.

00:52:28.840 Yeah.

00:52:29.320 And I think the idea that conservative attitudes

00:52:31.980 towards immigration are the preserve of white Brits. 0.86

00:52:35.200 Well, sorry, you didn't understand Brexit very well either.

00:52:37.320 What was very interesting is that

00:52:38.880 you saw these London-based journalists after Brexit.

00:52:41.680 Oh God, we need to find some Brexit voters.

00:52:43.640 God, where are they? Where do I find them?

00:52:45.460 They go to pubs in Northern England.

00:52:47.220 They go to working men's clubs in the provincial Midlands.

00:52:50.240 All you have to do is go to some of the Mundas and Gudwaras

00:52:53.160 in West London.

00:52:54.000 You'd have found your fair share of Leave voters right there.

00:52:56.760 And I think there's a fundamental misunderstanding of...

00:52:58.680 Many people couldn't comprehend how Brexit even took place.

00:53:02.020 But some of the most conservative attitudes

00:53:04.220 that I've come across towards immigration,

00:53:07.020 law and order, asylum as well,

00:53:10.260 they come from established migrant communities.

00:53:12.760 And I think that's something that's not talked about all that much.

00:53:14.940 But it makes complete sense because when you think about it,

00:53:17.540 they look at it and go, look, I came here as an immigrant.

00:53:19.960 I worked really hard.

00:53:21.480 I paid into the system.

00:53:22.880 I set up a business.

00:53:24.100 I've raised a family.

00:53:25.760 And then there's people coming here on boats

00:53:27.980 and they're not going through any of that.

00:53:30.580 No.

00:53:31.020 They're just turning up.

00:53:31.900 Absolutely.

00:53:32.500 And I'll make the point,

00:53:33.200 why would a female refugee who is fleeing a part of the world 1.00

00:53:38.960 where rape was a weapon of war, 1.00

00:53:41.640 why would they express solidarity with many of the male illegal migrants 0.95

00:53:47.000 entering on the English South Coast just because they're a refugee?

00:53:51.100 There's no reason.

00:53:52.080 And actually, they may feel even more sensitive to that as well

00:53:55.180 because they would have felt that,

00:53:56.100 I fled very direct forms, direct threats of persecution and violence

00:54:01.500 and sexual violence in my homeland.

00:54:05.280 And this is how, this is why I was granted refugee status in the UK.

00:54:09.500 Why would they express solidarity with the illegal migrants 1.00

00:54:12.480 on the English South Coast?

00:54:13.500 There's no reason for them to.

00:54:14.840 In fact, they may be more sensitive to that.

00:54:16.960 So I think that with labour more generally,

00:54:20.340 and I'll make no secret that I still traditionally associate myself

00:54:25.260 with the Labour Party.

00:54:26.240 I'm from a Labour voting town,

00:54:28.300 traditionally Labour voting town in Luton.

00:54:30.880 One of the first things I did when I finally entered the world of work

00:54:34.080 was join a trade union.

00:54:36.380 But I think that you make such a good point about workers' rights

00:54:38.720 because when people think about workers' rights,

00:54:40.120 for some reason they think that's a form of xenophobia.

00:54:42.720 But British workers are of different races, ethnicities and faiths.

00:54:46.680 We have a very multi-ethnic, multi-faith workforce now.

00:54:52.140 So I think that what I'd like to see is,

00:54:54.640 of course you need a dynamic immigration system

00:54:56.560 which addresses urgent shortages in the labour market.

00:54:59.540 But I think that what would be quite an attractive

00:55:01.280 and electorally popular policy is investing more in the domestic workforce,

00:55:05.560 you know, in sort of improving skills,

00:55:08.620 the provision of high-quality apprenticeships in working-class communities.

00:55:12.020 And that's not only going to benefit white British people,

00:55:14.260 that will benefit a variety of people.

00:55:15.820 And then over time the country can wean itself off immigration dependency, 0.97

00:55:19.660 especially in sectors such as health and social care.

00:55:22.460 Rakeep, it's great to have you on the show.

00:55:24.000 The book is called Beyond Grievance.

00:55:25.900 Make sure to get it.

00:55:26.800 We're going to head over to Locals for your questions in a second.

00:55:29.580 But before we do, we always end with the same question,

00:55:31.720 which is, what's the one thing we're not talking about

00:55:33.920 that we really should be?

00:55:35.780 I think the one thing we're not talking about as much as we should

00:55:38.300 is prejudiced attitudes within minority communities.

00:55:43.140 Well, we just did an hour of that.

00:55:44.440 Well, one thing we didn't touch upon was that,

00:55:46.880 well, I didn't talk specifically about anti-Semitism,

00:55:49.280 which, you know, that actually,

00:55:50.540 when you're looking at British Muslim and British black communities,

00:55:54.800 levels of anti-Semitism and belief in anti-Semitic conspiracy theory

00:55:57.700 is actually higher than the general population.

00:56:00.600 And I think that's something that Labour,

00:56:02.500 especially with its recent record,

00:56:04.580 especially under Jeremy Corbyn,

00:56:06.480 along with the fact that it does command a high level of,

00:56:08.880 you know, public support among British Muslim

00:56:12.500 and British black communities more generally.

00:56:15.280 It's something that they may well have to face up to at some point.

00:56:18.460 I think you've been very unfair,

00:56:19.880 because Diane Abbott's been very strong on this.

00:56:23.200 No, but it always makes me laugh

00:56:25.080 when these, like, left liberal newspapers

00:56:27.380 write these outraged articles about rising levels of anti-Semitism.

00:56:31.820 I'm like, why don't you do a little digging

00:56:33.000 and find out where it's coming from.

00:56:35.720 Anyway, Rakib, thank you so much for coming on.

00:56:38.120 Head on over to Locals, where we continue the conversation.

00:56:41.880 Why is ethnic diversity seen as a cause 0.99

00:56:44.180 for problems in Africa and the Middle East,

00:56:46.280 but a strength where diversities are strength in the West?

TRIGGERnometry - October 15, 2023

The Truth About Race Relations in the UK - Rakib Ehsan

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