UK: Failure to tackle institutional racism is root cause of racist violence unfolding on the streets - new report

As far-right violence threaten people of colour, leading charities warn the UK is failing international human rights obligations on race 

• Racist and Islamophobic violence unfolding on the streets of the UK highlight the failures of successive governments to make progress on racism.
• Four-year stagnation on the disparities facing people of colour across the criminal justice system, health, education, employment, and immigration.
• Alarming ten-year increase in faith-based hate crimes. 
• 47% of children of colour are living in poverty, compared to 24% of white children.
• Police are 6.5 more likely to strip search Black children, and 4.7 times more likely to strip search Black adults, than their white counterparts.
• Toxic and dehumanising language used by politicians to describe people of colour.

A joint submission from the Runnymede Trust and Amnesty International UK to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination’s 113th Session, has found that government legislation and policy is in breach of key articles of the United Nations treaty, the International Convention for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (ICERD). 

Endorsed by over 40 civil society organisations, the 50-page report shows that people of colour have faced a worrying rowback on their civil and political rights. Legislation, institutional practices and society’s customs continue to combine to harm people of colour. 

Considerable concern is raised about breaches of human rights obligations in recent immigration legislation, including the Illegal Migration Act (2023), which will likely disproportionately impact people of colour.

Echoing concerns from the previous reporting period to ICERD (2021), the charities maintain deep concern over previous government legislation including the Police, Crime Sentencing and Courts Act (2022), Elections Act (2022), and the Nationality and Borders Act (2022), which, combined, offer the biggest and sustained threat to the civil and political  rights of people of colour in a generation.

Key statistics include:

• 47% of children of colour are living in poverty, compared to 24% of white children.
• Police are 6.5 more likely to strip search Black children, and 4.7 times more likely to strip search Black adults, than their white counterparts.
• Under Joint Enterprise, Black people are 16 times more likely to be prosecuted, and Asian people 4 times more likely to be prosecuted.
• British Bangladeshi women are over 8 times more likely to be unemployed than White British women.
• Pakistani (23%) and Black (19%) people are at least twice as likely to be in insecure work compared to white people (9.6%).
• Women of colour are three times as likely as white men to be on zero-hour contracts.
• Religious hate crimes against Muslims or those perceived as Muslims constitute the largest proportion of hate crimes, at 44%. This followed 19% for Jewish people or those perceived as Jewish. 
  • Following October 2023, Islamophobic incidents rose by 600%. 4,103 anti-Jewish hate incidents were recorded in 2023, 66% of which were after October 7th. 
• The presence of police officers in schools has increased, with 979 Safer Schools Officers (SSO) operating in schools across Britain, with 489 in London. SSOs are deployed in schools with higher proportions of pupils of colour and working class pupils.
• There is a 26-year difference in life expectancy between white people and people of colour with profound and multiple learning disabilities. 
• The health of White British women in their 80s is equivalent to that of Black Caribbean and Indian women in their 70s, and Pakistani and Bangladeshi women in their 50s.
• Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people have 10-25 years’ shorter life expectancies than the general population.
• People of colour who rent their homes are 87% more likely to have experienced illegal acts from their landlord than White British or Irish renters, and 22% more likely to suffer damp or mould in their housing.

The submission shows the ways in which disparities facing people of colour across the criminal justice system, health, education, employment, and immigration have sustained since the previous reporting period four years ago. Failure to improve outcomes for people of colour, whilst attacking the ways in which these communities can dissent, leads to an impossible situation for them. Targeted by Prevent, restricted avenues to protest, over-policed and under-protected, and subject to higher rates of poverty - communities of colour are having to pave the cracks blighted on them by the state. 

Recommendations from the report include:

• Abolish the two-child limit benefit cap.
• Scrap the Prevent Duty.
• Prohibit in law and in practice the use of strip searches on children.
• Scrap the Serious Violence Reduction Order pilot.
• Repeal harmful legislation for people of colour, including the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act (2022), Public Order Act (2023), Elections Act (2022) and Section 10 of the Nationality and Borders Act (2022).
• Explicitly recognise and incorporate the right to housing as a human right in domestic law, policy and practice.
• Ensure the right to just and favourable conditions of work, including remuneration that allows for a decent living for workers and their families, by addressing income precarity and requiring employers to provide greater employment security for workers by scrapping zero-hours contracts.
• Ban the use of rap and music in prosecutions.

The shadow civil society submission, co-authored by the Runnymede Trust and Amnesty International UK, has been endorsed by over 40 civil society organisations including Liberty, Black Equity Organisation, Friends Families and Travellers, Migrants Organise, and Inquest.

Alba Kapoor, Head of Policy at the Runnymede Trust, said:

“As far-right thugs attack, harass and intimidate people of colour in the UK, there could be no more urgent time to address racial injustice. 

“People of colour have faced a rowback on their civil and political rights over the past five years. From the inhumane changes to our asylum system, to the introduction of legislation that restricts protest rights and ramps up harmful policing powers, it is time to shift the dial. 

“This has been coupled with deep-rooted inequalities in access to housing, education and wealth - as the cost of living crisis bites. It is scandalous that in 2024 people of colour, children included, are facing these levels of poverty and deprivation. These are structural issues, and will need radical solutions to undo them. 

“This new government must act to end the othering of migrant communities and people seeking asylum, and commit to meaningful structural changes that address deep rooted inequalities in our society. Our submission to the Committee highlights key recommendations to take forward in order for that to happen.”

Ilyas Nagdee, Racial Justice Director at Amnesty UK, said:

“The racist and Islamophobic violence unfolding on the streets of the UK highlight the failures of successive governments to make progress on institutional racism.

“Since the last reporting period, the Committee should be alert to the myriad ways racism and discrimination have been embedded in legislation and policy practice, rather than tackled by successive governments.

“In the face of racist violence, avenues for racialised communities to show their frustration at the lack of progress or dissent from Government have too been weakened with restrictions to protests, further policing powers extending to the pre-crime space and the ramping up of Prevent, which violates several of our basic human rights.

“The new UK government must not move forward attempting piecemeal reform, it must reset the national debate and make tackling institutional racism and inequality foundational to its missions, and ensure we do not vilify but protect some of the most marginalised people in the UK.”

About ICERD

The United Nations International Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) monitors how well governments are promoting racial equality and challenging racial discrimination in their countries. The UK government ratified to follow ICERD in 1969 to take action on eliminating racial discrimination in all its forms.   

This report is the independent shadow civil society report which will be submitted to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. An independent civil society report is submitted to the Committee every 4 years alongside an equivalent Government (state) report, and is used by the UN as a barometer to assess member countries’ progress on race equality. The Runnymede Trust was responsible for coordinating the 2011, 2016 and 2021 shadow reports.