Britain's race problem: what politicians aren't telling you about multiculturalism - Trevor Philips

Is the phrase ‘white privilege’ increasingly out of touch? The received mainstream wisdom has generally described Britain as a white majority society in which the non-white community are invariably oppressed, discriminated against or overlooked. But a new report from the think tank Policy Exchange paints a complicated picture of multicultural Britain, showing that, actually, the experiences of ethnic minorities can’t all be grouped into one, ‘non-white’ label. In fact, minorities such as British-Indians and the British-Chinese consistently outperform the white majority, even those who are wealthier.

In this no-holds-barred interview, the broadcaster and author Trevor Phillips talks to The Spectator’s assistant editor Cindy Yu about race in modern Britain. What do the summer’s riots tell us about the real problems of integration in this country? Is the right better at dealing with the nuances of race and class than the left? And why is it that the white majority are increasingly left behind?

Critique of the Traditional Race Narrative in Britain

• A new report from Policy Exchange suggests that class might be a bigger barrier to success than race in modern Britain.
• The traditional "received wisdom" has been to focus predominantly on race, but the report indicates that not all ethnic minority experiences can be grouped under one non-white label.
• The Orthodox narrative—that the white majority runs the country, the establishment, and the media, and that everyone else is oppressed—is being challenged by reality.
• It is a mistake to view diversity through a simplistic black-white binary, as the landscape in Britain is much richer and more multidimensional.
• The idea of "white supremacy" is broadly speaking beginning to run so counter to the reality most people experience that it sounds "out of touch" and "silly".

Scale and Consequences of Demographic Change and Migration

• The current diversity is defined by 29 communities of more than 100,000 people who are either foreign-born or whose parents are foreign-born, coming from countries like Brazil, Iran, Zimbabwe, India, and China.
• It is estimated that by 2040, around half of the people in Britain will have been foreign-born or be the children or grandchildren of someone who was foreign-born, leading to a significant change in the country's mindset.
• Diasporas are linked to their old countries in ways previously impossible due to cheaper travel and modern media.
• The scale (net migration of half a million to three-quarters of a million annually) and speed of modern arrivals, coming from 20-25 different countries with different traditions, is vastly different from the 1950s (3,000 to 4,000 net arrivals, mostly from the Caribbean).
• Unlike in the 1950s, immigrants today are not going to simply abandon who they were.
• The challenge is not primarily about discrimination but about what encourages people who don't necessarily need to mix to want to mix with those outside their community.

Socioeconomic Divergence Among Minority Groups

• There is a massive divergence between minority groups in terms of socioeconomic success.
• Groups of Indian and Chinese heritage are described as the "Manchester City and Liverpool of socioeconomic integration"—meaning they are among the most successful at integrating.
• Children of Chinese heritage on free school meals do better than the average child not on free school meals, which is an extraordinary statistic.
• Indian groups, for instance, are more successful in education, employment, and professional work, have higher incomes, and have more home ownership proportionately than any other ethnicity.
• Conversely, groups like Caribbeans, Somalis, and some Pakistani Muslim groups often rank below the average.
• This divergence leads to the "peculiar proposition" that some ethnic groups are set fair to become an elite within Britain.

The Unacknowledged Challenge to the White Majority

• The potential rise of successful minority groups presents a big set of issues for the established majority, who have always thought of themselves as the "lucky ones".
• There is a significant backlash against the phrase "white privilege" from white people who do not feel privileged, such as those in struggling coastal towns.
• These white communities experience profound disruption signaled by demographic change, including empty tourist hotels being used to house asylum seekers, and their children being unable to afford local housing.
• This sense of being lied to by the elite—who say everything will be fine when it won't be "like it was before"—fuels the fury and anger visible in social problems.

Political Failure to Address Integration

• Politicians recognise the integration problem but are "terrified to articulate it".
• Instead of addressing the objective changes (scale, speed, and clustering), politicians resort to saying that the problem is caused by "bad people whipping division", and that silencing them would solve everything.
• Britain lacks the habit of preparing for integration and does not have the institutions or policy necessary to create an integrated society.
• Traditional integrating institutions like churches, trade unions, and large workplaces (where immigrants worked next door to 80% non-immigrant natives) no longer automatically force people together due to the modern shape of the economy.

The Value of Immigration and the Need to Copy Success

• Inward migration is considered an inevitability and a "good thing for Britain" because the West tends to get the best people—those who are impatient, ambitious, enterprising, and smart enough to seek a better life.
• The thing that the elite "most loathe" is the idea that some minority groups overcome difficulties through their own efforts, cultural propositions, and behaviours.
• Academics and politicians are often reluctant to study why groups like Chinese children are so successful, due to the fear that it would "stigmatize others".
• This reluctance is self-defeating and betrays hundreds of thousands of children (including poor white and Caribbean children) who could benefit from learning the "secret source" of successful groups.
• The success factors are often known white middle or upper-class traits, such as ambitious parents, stable marriages, and parents reading to children.
• There is a "snobbery" among some middle-class parents who criticize the strict parenting seen in some successful groups (e.g., the pressure on Lang Lang), because they want to "hoard opportunity" and avoid competition.

Geopolitics and the Battle of Values

• The challenge facing the UK is a "global challenge" where countries like Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea are led by people who do not believe in liberal democracy.
• These authoritarian nations are investing heavily in persuading the developing world (e.g., providing food and infrastructure) that their model is superior to democracy.
• The debate is a "struggle for the soul of how people live", and politicians should not use "pretty" or vulgar language because much of the world only pays attention to politics when it is "vulgar and visceral".
• Britain should make the case that its way of doing things is more likely to produce freedom, innovation, productivity, and sustainable development.

Policy Prescriptions and Political Dynamics

• Britain should be working with and elevating the diasporas, making them advocates for British values and trade (e.g., leveraging the Indian community for relations with India).
• The Commonwealth should be used much more as an access point to advance liberal democratic values against competing authoritarian values.
• Enforcing existing laws against discrimination and inequality is necessary.
• On the political right, the Conservative Party has increasingly selected and elected candidates of color in predominantly white constituencies, suggesting a move toward being "colorblind" in selections, unlike the Labour Party, whose minority MPs typically come from constituencies with a large proportion of similar ethnic groups.
• The Labour Party's traditional vote among minority groups is becoming insecure, with the Indian and Chinese groups drifting away.
• Labour also faces the challenge of reconciling conflicts between traditional support groups (e.g., between Hindus and Muslim Indians in Leicester, or the party's Muslim and Jewish voters over imported issues like Gaza).
• The policy prescription for success is to be honest with ourselves, look at the facts, and treat diversity as a great social problem and opportunity, moving beyond the binary narrative of white oppressors and miserable non-white minorities.
• The most fundamental goal should be to understand and copy the success of high-achieving groups to enable all British children to better compete for jobs.

Chapters

00:00 – Introduction
01:06 – The findings of the Policy Exchange report on 'Modern Britain'
04:55 – Integration success stories: Indian and Chinese immigrants
09:34 – The 'white privilege' lie and the Southport riots
12:45 – Why the West gets the 'best of the best' immigrants
18:25 – Labour's disintegrating migrant coalition
20:59 – The secret to Kemi Badenoch's conservative appeal
26:04 – Why liberal democracy is in crisis
31:57 – The future of minority communities in Britain