As most people from Wales or
Scotland will understand, most of the rest of the world appears not to
understand the difference between England and Britain. For all the difference
in accent when people speak, we sound much the same as each other to a
non-British ear. And there are no visible differences either – red hair may be
marginally more prevalent in Ireland, but it isn’t uniquely so, and it’s not
much of an indicator. Something similar happens in other areas of the world as
well – or even within migrant communities. Whilst the difference between an Indian
and a Pakistani or, say, someone of Indian ethnicity with a Mauritian/Kenyan background, will be clear and obvious to all of them, it’s a lot less so to many less
familiar with the differences, and again is not obviously visible. Many of
those stigmatised with the label ‘Paki’ over the years have no connection whatsoever
with Pakistan; those doing the labelling simply don’t understand that.
That makes it highly dangerous
for any politician in the UK to start labelling one particular group of people
of Asian origin as being responsible for one particular type of crime. It would
be dangerous even if it were true, but the
evidence suggests that it doesn’t even pass that test. It’s a line which
does, though, pander to a particular sector of the electorate, and it’s a
sector which is unlikely to distinguish (and is probably incapable of doing so)
between Pakistanis and Asians more generally. And to the extent that anything
the Tories do or say these days can surprise me, I am surprised that Suella
Braverman, given her own background, does not understand that. There seems to
be a belief of some sort that there is nothing racist about a person of Asian
origin stirring up hatred against other people of an Asian origin, but that’s
not the way it’s likely to play out. It should go without saying that police
will tackle grooming gangs, with no distinction as to their colour or race
(although recent reports suggest that police are more, rather than less, likely
to tackle non-Caucasian crime in at least some parts of the UK), and if some
forces have ‘difficulty’ in doing that, it needs to be addressed. But using the
sort of words which Braverman used yesterday is likely to make their task
harder rather than easier, to say nothing of encouraging racist political
groups. In her attempt to woo a particular sector of the electorate, she really
has gone too far, and for all his cautious distancing from the detail of what
she said, his failure to sack her means that Sunak is as bad. Who would have
thought, just a few years ago, that having senior ministers from an Asian
background would stoke rather than lessen racial tensions?
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