13
ISSUES: Racial & Ethnic Discrimination
Chapter 1: Racism & discrimination
Britain becoming more segregated than
15 years ago, says race expert
Prof. Ted Cantle, who wrote report after 2001 race riots, identifies trends of "more
prejudice, intolerance and mistrust" in schools and workplaces.
By Anushka Asthana
B
ritish society is increasingly
dividing along ethnic lines –
with segregation in schools,
neighbourhoods and workplaces – that
risks fuelling prejudice, according to
one of the country’s leading experts on
race and integration.
Prof. Ted Cantle, who carried out a
report into community cohesion in the
wake of a series of race riots in 2001,
warned that growing divisions had led
to mistrust within communities across
the country.
Speaking to
The
Guardian
15 years
after he called for action to reduce
polarisation following violent riots
across northern England, in Oldham,
Bradford, Leeds and Burnley, Cantle
said he was alarmed by the direction
the country had headed since then.
“There is more mixing in some
parts of our society. But there is also
undoubtedly more segregation in
residential areas, more segregation
in schools and more segregation in
workplaces,” he said. “That is driving
more prejudice, intolerance, mistrust in
communities.”
Cantle cited as evidence an almost four-
fold increase in the number of electoral
wards with a non-white majority, from
119 in 2001 to 429 today, saying that
suggested communities were more
concentrated by race, rather than
increasingly mixed. He also pointed
out that in the ten years after the riots,
London’s white-British population was
reduced by 600,000, while its minority
population rose by 1.2 million, saying
that segregation was particularly
marked in towns and cities.
Cantle argued that a shift in focus by
the previous Labour and then Coalition
Government
to
anti-extremism
measures “squeezed out” policies that
were meant to promote community
cohesion. He claimed that faith schools
were particularly problematic, arguing
that too many were teaching just
one religion or even “manipulating
admissions” to cherrypick students.
He also claimed there were deeply
segregated workplaces, highlighting
food processing and packing as an area
of concern. Cantle argued that attempts
tomake sure employers recruitedmixed
teams had stalled, leading to too many
teams with “single identities”.
The academic argued that part of
the solution had to be driving a more
positive conversation about race in
Britain, which accepted that society
had changed and tried to focus on the
potential benefits of immigration. “We
live in a globalised world – we can’t
disinvent easyJet, we can’t undo the
internet, we can’t turn the clock back on
companies being global and we can’t
undiversify Britain,” he said.
It comes as the Labour MP Chuka
Umunna issued a similar warning in
an article in
The Guardian
. “I believe
the cracks in our communities have
grown. Not only has Britain become
a more ethnically segmented nation
as immigration has continued to rise,
but also the growing income and
lifestyle gap between rich and poor
has undermined the sense that there is
such a thing as a common British life,”
he wrote.
Umunna pointed to unrest in London
in 2011, arguing that while the city
prided itself on diversity, it did not
always translate into social interactions
between different groups, but instead
had constituents “leading parallel
lives”. The MP is chair of the all-party
parliamentary group on integration,
which is hearing evidence from Cantle
alongside the home office minister
Lord Ahmad, and Louise Casey, who
is carrying out a major review into
integration in Britain.
Cantle’s comments follow research
from the thinktank Demos, which
found 61% of ethnic minority children
in England, and 90% in London,
start year one in schools where the
majority of children are from minority
groups. The data revealed schools
dominated by children of either
Bangladeshi, Pakistani or black-
Caribbean origin. However, Professor
Simon Burgess who processed the
data, said it showed that segregation
in schools was flat or even declining
in some areas.
“We know that people who live
in closed communities are more
fearful of others and more likely to
be prejudiced to people from other
backgrounds,” added Cantle. He
said that anti-extremism measures,
including
the
anti-radicalisation
scheme 'Prevent', had “overwhelmed
the work on cohesion” since 2007.
Cantle particularly criticised the
Coalition Government after 2010,
claiming that they removed a duty on
schools to promote cohesion and said
in a report that "the Government will
“There is more mixing
in some parts of our
society. But there is
also undoubtedly
more segregation in
residential areas, more
segregation in schools
and more segregation in
workplaces”
“We know that
people who live in
closed communities
are more fearful of
others and more likely
to be prejudiced to
people from other
backgrounds”
