For some among us, there comes a time when we realise our teenage convictions were somewhat misguided. We discover that our parents’ dusty beliefs are not so terribly ill-conceived, having a much sharper understanding of the modern world than we had previously imagined. Luckiest are we who grasp this while still young, before our parents’ departure.
Category: Immigration
Discrimination remains a hotly-debated issue in multi-ethnic, religiously diverse democracies such as the UK. The UK labour market continues to be marked by ethnic – and religious – penalties. This has been demonstrated by a wide array of CV field experiments, including the recent report by the Centre for Social…
We have heard a great deal from politicians and pundits over the last three years about how Leavers are bigots and that the Brexit vote marked a step backwards in race relations in the UK. Remain activists have repeatedly taken to social media and the airwaves to explain that leaving the…
Ben Cobley skillfully picks apart the ideology and system of diversity that is stifling British politics and social relations.
Brexit has highlighted that Britain is a divided nation. Having voted Remain, I was shocked and saddened by a minority of powerful metro-elite pro-EU supporters who have steadfastly refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of the result. It was their vitriol against working-class voters that has led me to rethink many of my previously held assumptions.
Trevor Phillips once said to me – only half joking – that newspapers should have identity correspondents, just as they have economics or environment correspondents. Certainly there appears to be an inexhaustible appetite on the part of media outlets for stories that focus on social divisions, real or imagined. Usually these are framed as moral parables featuring virtuous victims, usually female, ethnic minority or gay, and contemptible wrong-doers who are male, white or straight. Sometimes the perpetrator is institutional – often, as with the Windrush generation controversy, the British state itself.