UK Britain's Race Debate after BLM: Tony Sewell the Truth Few Wanted to Hear

[Social Media]

 

In the wake of the global protests ignited by the killing of George Floyd in 2020, the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement took hold in the UK, sparking a national conversation on systemic racism. Demonstrations erupted across cities, with activists asserting that Britain was deeply infected by racial injustice and that ethnic minorities were being held back by institutional barriers. In response, the British government appointed Tony Sewell—now Lord Sewell—to lead the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities to assess the validity of these claims.

 

"If Sir Keir Starmer wants to know why Britain’s worst riots in more than a decade have happened on his watch, he need only pay a visit to Lord Sewell, the man who wrote a landmark report on racial and ethnic disparities in 2021."

 

What the commission discovered, however, went against the prevailing narrative. While disparities did exist across various sectors, the evidence did not point to systemic racism as the primary cause. Rather, the findings portrayed a Britain that was, for the most part, fair, tolerant, and striving toward racial equality. This conclusion clashed with the expectations of many activists. “People weren’t really interested in the truth in 2020,” Sewell said in a recent interview with spiked. “They weren’t interested in facts. They were interested in emotion – so the reaction was always going to be irrational.”

 

Reflecting on the global fervor of that moment, Sewell compared the BLM movement to a kind of contagion. “Like Covid, BLM was a kind of global infection. People were unable to distinguish between what had happened in a faraway town in America and what was happening in their own lives,” he said. “I don’t know how many black people are in South Korea, but it had demonstrations.”

 

The commission's work delved deeply into the education system, where the underperformance of African Caribbean students had often been cited as evidence of racism. Yet the data told a more complex story. “Indian Hindu pupils and Nigerian pupils were doing much better than African Caribbean pupils,” Sewell explained. “And the Nigerian groups were in the same classrooms as the African Caribbean students. That pushed us towards looking at other things, such as family structures.”

 

Sewell emphasized that many factors contribute to unequal outcomes, including socioeconomic and cultural differences, rather than racism alone. “What seemed on the surface to be attributable to ‘racism’ was caused by multiple factors.”

 

He also highlighted the success stories of various minority groups. “Certainly, for new African migrants and certain Asian groups, in areas such as education and employment, it was a positive story,” he said. “In fact, outcomes for ethnic minorities couldn’t have been better in some areas, particularly in terms of education.”

 

As debates raged about how best to tackle disparities—through measures like ‘decolonising the curriculum’ or increasing racial representation—Sewell pointed to his own experiences working in Hackney in the 1990s. “We tried all the solutions people talk about today – more black teachers, a greater focus on black authors in the curriculum... But it didn’t improve outcomes,” he said. “Only when we began talking about leadership and high expectations did anything change.”

 

He argued that the conversation needed to shift back toward individual and community agency. “Really, we’re talking about the thing that people don’t want to talk about, which is human agency – the idea that communities can drive themselves,” he said. “You can’t say that poor black people should be able to use their own efforts to advance themselves. The message from the left is that they’re incapable.”

 

On recent disturbances, such as the Southport riots, Sewell cautioned against broad generalizations. While condemning the violence, he acknowledged that many of the grievances came from underserved white communities. “We haven’t been listening to those who’ve been left behind – namely, the predominantly white people on our south coast and in the north,” he noted. “They often get condemned as just a bunch of racists, but as far as we’re concerned, that’s not the case.”

 

Looking ahead, Sewell expressed concern over the direction of identity politics. “Identity politics really isn’t working, and never really did work,” he said. Though frustrated that the government didn’t more publicly support his commission’s findings, he remains hopeful. “My view is that you’ve got to speak to everybody. That’s my bit of idealism.”

 

He revealed that many who once criticized him privately acknowledged the value of his report. “Many people in Labour and the House of Lords – some of whom condemned me in the past – told me in secret that it was a good report.”

 

Watch the whole conversation here:

 

 

  Adapted by ASEAN Now from The Telegraph | Spiked  2025-06-14

 

 

[Watawattana]

Fascinating.  Also, no surprise, and matches my experiences of growing up, my working life and my current life.  Funny how someone speaking common sense gets denigrated by the lunatics and the extremists.

[JonnyF]

Idiots jumped on the bandwagon. Same as many leftist causes like trans rights.

 

The only race discriminated against in modern Britain are whites (and Jews).

[JonnyF]

On 6/14/2025 at 4:03 AM, Social Media said:

He argued that the conversation needed to shift back toward individual and community agency. “Really, we’re talking about the thing that people don’t want to talk about, which is human agency – the idea that communities can drive themselves,” he said. “You can’t say that poor black people should be able to use their own efforts to advance themselves. The message from the left is that they’re incapable.”

 

 

Exactly, and when they do elevate themselves Labour MPS's like Rupa Huq call them "superficially black". 

 

Labour want the minorities weak, reliant and easily manipulated. So they vote for Labour.