THE UK must do more to tackle racism, say Quakers in Britain, as the country faces a review by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD).
Since the last review in 2016, the UK has gone through Brexit, a global pandemic which hit black and Asian people in the UK disproportionately hard, and the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020.
Yet while Quakers in Britain and civil society organisations have repeatedly suggested ways to address racial discrimination, the UK government has habitually failed to act on them. Now the faith group and others, including Amnesty International and the Racial Equality Network, are taking their concerns to the United Nations and submitting evidence to the first CERD review of the UK in eight years, which will be heard in August.
“We believe the main cause of racial and ethnic disparities in the UK is an ongoing narrative of British superiority towards other countries and people”, Quakers wrote. They highlighted areas contributing towards racism as education, immigration and asylum, and policing.
Quakers in Britain recommend that the UK should scrap or amend the Public Order Act (2023) and the stop-and-search policies, which give already institutionally racist UK police substantial power. Black people are nine times more likely to be stopped and searched according to the UK government’s own statistics, they said.
The UK’s immigration policies also perpetuate racism by demonising migrants and asylum seekers, the submission says. This stops asylum seekers integrating and creates an environment conducive to violence.
In education, the Prevent programme has been shown to disproportionately target and stigmatise Muslim young people and should be abolished, they said. All UK education systems should work with unions, teachers, and young people on an antiracist education strategy.
On the steep rise in permanent exclusions from English schools, they noted: “Our research highlights that permanent school exclusions are racialised.” They added: “UK education should make more of the legacy of colonialism and the link between racial disparities and vulnerability to climate breakdown.”
Alongside Quakers in Britain’s written evidence, Edwina Peart, equity and justice lead, is submitting video evidence to be viewed by CERD members.
* The full submission is avaliable to download here.
* Source: Quakers in Britain
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