POLITICIANS MUST act now to address widespread racial injustice across Britain, including in the criminal justice system and education, the leading race equality charity has warned. 

The Runnymede Trust, who campaign against racial inequality, have released a new report about the escalating scale of disparities across the UK ahead of political parties rolling out their policies for conference season. 

The report, called ‘Priorities for Racial Justice in Britain’, outlines the policies needed to tackle systemic racism as speculation grows of an early general election next year. The Conservatives gather in Manchester this Saturday for their annual conference, followed by Labour the following Sunday.

The new report outlines how racial disparities reached breaking point at the height of the Black Lives Matter protests, the Covid-19 pandemic and most recently the rising cost to living crisis.

The leading think-tank is urging policymakers to address disadvantages in over 50 areas of public life including health, employment, policing, climate justice and civil and political rights.

They called on politicians to look beyond “virtuous” short term policies and individualised solutions, and instead for transformative policies that are “visionary, co-ordinated, and ambitious” to be embraced. 

Amid political discourse and the culture wars, the trust outlines their agenda policy is that racial injustice issues should no longer be “siloed or used” as politicised tools to sow division. 

The Labour party, which has historically been backed by the African-Caribbean vote, has yet to unveil their plans to address the racial inequalities plaguing the lives of Black Britons.

The report says that policing in the UK has hit a “crisis point” with communities of colour existing at the sharp end of aggressive police tactics such as increased Taser use, spit hood usage and strip-searches on children. 

The damning findings come after the disturbing strip-search of Child Q and the fatal shooting of Chris Kaba sparked outrage. 

In Freedom of Information requests made by the Runnymede Trust, it discovered that out of 45 police forces there are 979 police officers operating in UK schools. 

Shockingly, police officers are also more likely to operate in schools with high numbers of pupils of colour. In particular, Black lives were increasingly under threat despite the Met Commissioner refusing to label the country’s largest police force as “institutionally racist”. 

Black children were also disproportionately targeted for strip-searching, being six-times more likely to be strip-searched than their white counterparts between 2018 and 2020.

Black people were subject to Taser use by police in England and Wales at almost eight times the rate of white people in the year 2018/19 and are more likely to be Tasered longer than guidelines permit. 

Whilst under the Police Crimes Sentencing and Courts Act in 2022, the introduction of new stop and search orders is expected to exacerbate long-standing targeting of Black communities. 

Shabna Begum, Interim CEO of the Runnymede Trust, said: “Change is never won by individuals or a single institution, but through working in solidarity with our various communities. 

“As we saw during the pandemic, with narratives around vaccine hesitancy, our power is shaped by how well we can mobilise around specific issues and transform a ‘blame’ agenda into one that recognises the need to address deep-seated inequities in how people of colour access and experience essential services which ought to be universally available.”

Deaths in police custody was highlighted as a disproportionate issue again impacting Black communities. 

According to INQUEST,  who monitors state-related deaths, shows that in the past 10 years 8% of those who died in custody were Black despite representing only 4% of the population. 

Along with INQUEST, The racial-equality think tank called for a new National Oversight Mechanism: a new independent public body responsible for monitoring recommendations arising from inquiries, inquiries, official reviews and investigations into state-related deaths.

They want draconian stop and search powers under Stop and Search provisions in Section 60 of the Public Order Act 1994 to be wiped out and for the Police, Crimes, Sentencing and Courts Act to be repealed. 

The 2023 manifesto also challenged police forces in England to discontinue any further participation in Safer Schools Partnerships and withdraw Safer Schools Officers from schools. 

Demanding that people of colour deserve to be in classrooms “free from discrimination”. 

Schools in England were plagued by up to 60,000 racist incidents in the last five years, according to The Guardian. 

Black Caribbean and pupils are 5 times more likely to be excluded from school than their white counterparts, followed by Gypsy Roma Traveller communities who are 9 times more likely. 

The report destined racism in British schools as the “tip of the iceberg,” which is leaving a generation of young people caught in the “school to prison-pipeline”  

2021 data shows that 89% of imprisoned young people aged 12-18 in the UK have reported being excluded from school. 

Begum went on to blast “draconian” legislation which continues to threaten the rights of people of colour across Britain.

“Our economic and social security systems are discriminatory by design, and are simply not fit for purpose after decades of deliberate underfunding. These are political choices, they are not inevitable, and for the vast majority of us working class communities of colour – they are actively harmful,” she said.

“We need policies that are honest about the problem, with real care to address the systemic racism that sits at the heart of so many of our crumbling institutions. These must go beyond tinkering at the edges, and think ambitiously about what transforming our society really looks like.”

The Runnymede Trust is calling for racially literacy training for teachers by introducing mandatory subject knowledge training on race and racism for Initial Teacher Education professionals and mentors. 

As well as for the National Curriculum to include statutory topics on race, migration and British Empire and  targeted pastoral support for children of colour with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) at higher risk of disciplinary action or exclusion.

“The last few years have seen an onslaught of draconian legislation that, together, present the most significant and sustained threat to the rights of people of colour in the UK in recent memory. Ongoing debates about migration have given way to a toxic policy agenda focused on scapegoating vulnerable people, in a shameless effort to distract from long-standing, cross-party, derelictions of government duty,” Begum said.

“Our economic and social security systems are discriminatory by design, and are simply not fit for purpose after decades of deliberate underfunding.”

She added: “It is in this context that the Runnymede Trust offers our priorities for racial justice in Britain. Despite all the efforts to divide us, whether on the grounds of class or ethnicity, we know that policies which promote racial justice are not just beneficial to people of colour, but create a fairer and more equitable society for all.

“We urge policymakers to desist from superficial virtue signalling, and dog-whistle politics, and instead actively create a more prosperous future for everyone. 

“The agenda we put forward requires commitment and courage – but is the only way that we can create a Britain where everyone genuinely has the opportunity to thrive and prosper.”

She added: “This could start by dealing with our persistently inadequate maternal and neonatal healthcare, addressing the disproportionate exclusions of our children from their schools, legislating against unequal progression in a precarious and poorly paid labour market, and investing in our social security system to protect against the shocking rates of poverty we are seeing, where even our elders, after a lifetime of work and contribution, experience poverty upon retirement. 

“We need policies that imagine a society built on equity and justice, accompanied with the levels of funding, investment and commitment that can lift them off paper and into the reality of people’s lives. 

“The agenda we put forward requires commitment and courage – but is the only way that we can create a Britain where everyone genuinely has the opportunity to thrive and prosper.”

Read more > Warm words have failed – it’s time for action to tackle racial injustice