A Home Office commissioned paper that officials have repeatedly tried to suppress since it came out in 2021 concludes that the origins of the Windrush scandal lay in 30 years of racist immigration legislation designed to reduce the UK’s non-white population. The 52-page paper, which has been leaked to The Guardian states that “during the period 1950-1981, every single piece of immigration or citizenship legislation was designed at least in part to reduce the number of people with black or brown skin who were permitted to live and work in the UK”. 

​The report, named 'The Historical Roots of the Windrush Scandal', was commissioned by the Home Office as part of a commitment to educating civil servants about the causes of the Windrush scandal, which saw thousands of people wrongly classified as illegal immigrants by the department. Stating that “the British Empire depended on racist ideology in order to function” the report asserts that in the 1950s, British officials shared a “basic assumption that ‘coloured immigrants’, as they were referred to, were not good for British society.”

While circulated internally, a year on the report remains unpublished and a Freedom of Information request by The Guardian was turned down by the Home Office; a refusal described as "shameful" by Simon Woolley, the former CEO of Operation Black Vote and chair of the No 10 race disparity unit. “The government is hellbent in its denial of the systemic nature of racial inequality and in this climate historical facts have become uncomfortable truths that need to be hidden.” Read the full Guardian article here.

​Image by Steve Eason.

New figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that unemployment rates among Black, Asian and minority ethnic workers are now more than double those of their white counterparts: 7.7% versus 3.5% The gap has widened considerably since the start of the pandemic. These disparities show that the post-pandemic employment rate for ethnic minority workers is recovering at a slower rate than that of white workers.

It has also been revealed by The Independent that Black households face being disproportionately impacted by the cost of living crisis with the majority having less than £1,500 in savings and being more likely to go hungry. And it has recently emerged that Black, Asian and minority ethnic women are twice as likely to be on zero-hours contracts as white men.

Frances O’Grady, the general secretary of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), said: "The pandemic held up a mirror to discrimination in our labour market". and is calling on the government to “challenge” structural racism that is resulting in job inequality. “BME workers bore the brunt of the economic impact of the pandemic – in every industry where jobs were lost to the impact of Covid, BME workers were more likely to have been made unemployed.”

Read more here. Download the ONS report here.

National leaders and congregations of the black majority churches in the United Kingdom have issues a statement to express their horror at the "shameful and inhumane actions" on a 15-year-old girl on school premises by officers of the Metropolitan Police. Signatories include Rev Alton Bell, chair of MJR. Read the full statement here.

The recent testimony of ex-Yorkshire and England cricketer Azeem Rafiq to a parliamentary committee of the constant racism he suffered from team mates makes horrific listening and reading. Yet, amid the shock and hand-wringing and calls for something to be done, racists continue to react as though there isn't a problem. Some of the online comments are highlighted in this article by Tom Peck who says:  "There has to be an understanding, first and foremost, that racism is alive and well in Britain today. It is thriving. It is hammering out of the fingers of ever more emboldened keyboard warriors up and down the country, and it doesn’t stop there." Other, worse online comments continue to be made.

This is a deeply entrenched problem. That, farcically Yorkshire Cricket Club is being allowed to conduct its own investigation is another facet of it. Rafiq is rightly being praised for his courage in taking a stand, but Peck concludes pessimistically "there remains the growing evidence that things are going backwards".

Author Jeremy Williams' book "Climate Change....is Racist" looks at the connection between climate change and race as well as what can be done to bring about climate justice. He will be discussing these issues at an online event on November 18. 

​Climate change is an example of structural racism – something that will affect people in different ways and can result in divides along racial lines. The effect of climate change on the Global South is rarely highlighted and it’s something that will affect us all in the future. Those in the world who have contributed the least to this crisis will undoubtedly suffer the most. More information and booking here.

According to a new report by racial equality think-tank the Runnymede Trust, racism is still "systemic" in England and legislation, institutional practices and customs are harming ethnic minority groups as they still face inequalities across health, the criminal justice system, education, employment, immigration and politics. The authors write that they believe the government’s new approach to equalities will fail to improve these outcomes “and may in fact worsen them”.

The report provides the independent civil society perspective to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) by examining the situation of race and racism in England. Describing the Government's recent Sewell Report as: "divisive and dishonest", the report says government practice  "stands in clear breach" of the UN International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD). UN's human rights experts had previously criticised the Sewell Report, stating: "In 2021, it is stunning to read a report on race and ethnicity that repackages racist tropes and stereotypes into fact, twisting data and misapplying statistics and studies into conclusory findings and ad hominem attacks on people of African descent."

Read more here and here. Download the Runnymede Trust report here,

A proposal for the Church if England to appoint racial justice officers in each of its 42 dioceses has been turned down by the Archbishop's Council due to cost. It was a key recommendation from the 'From Lament to Action' report published in April after years of inaction over institutional racism. Co-chairs of the anti-racism taskforce that produced the report, the Rev Arun Arora and the Rev Sonia Barron, said they were “deeply shocked and disappointed” and that it “boils down to a matter of priorities” and would “inevitably lead to conclusions as to how much or how little this matters to decision-makers in the church”.

Elizabeth Henry, who resigned as the C of E’s race adviser last year, said: “To say it’s too costly is a gross insult. It’s to say racial justice is too expensive when it is a foundation of our faith. This decision is a disgrace. We have to stop waiting for the church to allow us racial justice. I pray black and brown people will vote with our feet.”

Other recommendations in the report included that shortlists for senior clergy should include at least one appointable candidate of a minority ethnic background by September, with an expectation this occurs for all other jobs in the Church.

Read more here and here..

​'From Lament to Action' is the report by the Anglican Church's Archbishop's Anti-Racism Taskforce. Released in the same week as a shocking Panorama programme 'Is the Church Racist?', issues a warning to the Archbishops that a failure to act could be a “last straw” for many people of UK Minority Ethnic (UKME) or Global Majority Heritage (GMH) backgrounds with “devastating effects” on the future of the Church. The report is clear that addressing the underlying issues of systemic racism is a “missional imperative” for the Church, and warns: “Disregarding a significant part of the population, and thus denying the gifts they bring for the service of the Church, must not continue.”

​Read the News Release here. Download the report here. Read a summary of key recommendations here.

Following the interview of Harry and Meghan by Oprah Winfrey and the storm of reaction to claims of racism at the highest levels of British society and indeed as a motivator of much press coverage of the couple, particularly Meghan, the chair of MJR, Rev Alton Bell, has issued a statement calling on the Monarchy to take this opportunity to bring about real and lasting racial reconciliation. Read the full statement here.

A Press Release "Has British racism been exposed yet again by the Sussex interview? Alton Bell believes: “This is an opportunity for reconciliation.” has also been issued today.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) equalities watchdog has found in its "Assessment of hostile environment policies" that these policies that caused the Windrush scandal broke the law and are “a shameful stain on British history”. ​The damning report concludes that the Home Office failed in its “legal duties” towards black Britons, and that the harsh effects of the crackdown were “repeatedly ignored, dismissed, or their severity disregarded”. Ministers failed to listen properly to protests from members of the Windrush generation, “even as the severe effects of hostile environment policies began to emerge”. The EHRC said its findings endorsed the conclusion of the Windrush Lessons Learned Review that the experiences of victims of the scandal were “foreseeable and avoidable”. 

The Windrush compensation scheme has paid just £1.6m to 196 people in 18 months when a bill of between £200m and £570m was expected. At least nine people have died before receiving the compensation they applied for. A black official helping to run the scheme resigned last week over “racism” and the government’s failure to help victims.

The EHRC concluded that the Home Office did not comply with the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED), which requires all public authorities to consider how their decisions affect people protected under the Equality Act. Impact assessments were “often considered too late to form a meaningful part of many decision-making processes”. Exceptions to the PSED for immigration were “in many cases interpreted incorrectly or inconsistently, and there was a general lack of commitment within the Home Office to the importance of equality”.

​Read more here and here. Download the report here.