A recent report from YouGov, the government agency responsible for polling the public on key issues, has found that half of Black Britons don’t think the UK has made any progress in combating racism since the murder of George Floyd last year. Worse still, many activists have reported a deterioration in race relations over the last year.
The YouGov poll, which has been published exactly one year since Floyd’s death, was answered by over 1,000 Black, Asian and minority ethnic adults, aged over 18. The results can be summarised as follows:
- 49% of Black people in Britain thought that race relations had stayed roughly the same in the last 12 months.
- 42% of all ethnic minority groups held the opinion that there had been no change and 45% of respondents from all backgrounds, predominantly white, held this view.
- However, 91% of Black respondents believed there have actually been improvements in race relations in that time period, with some commenting that it had happened quicker than they expected.
- At the other end, 33% of respondents from all ethnic minority groups felt that racism had worsened. One of the main indicators pointed to was the government’s widely criticised Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities Report and the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill.
At the time of the report, Tony Sewell, who chaired the commission, was roundly condemned for putting a “positive spin on slavery and empire”. Both Sewell and No. 10 adviser Munira Mirza, who was also on the commission, had also been criticised for saying the UK was no longer a country where the “system is deliberately rigged against ethnic minorities”.
Speaking to The Independent, a spokesperson for Black Lives Matter UK said it had been “motivated by the resistance and organising” over the past year as “protesters connected the killing of a Black American man in broad daylight”. They went on to criticise the subsequent response by many which they consider “corporate and establishment lip service” to solidarity, adding, “We do not believe that lip service, or ‘awareness’, equals liberation.”
Meanwhile, Marsha de Cordova, the shadow minister for equalities, said: “The events of 2020 including the unequal impact of COVID on Black, Asian and ethnic minority people, the murder of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement were a significant turning point. Across the country, individuals, businesses and civil society are taking action to address racial injustice. Worryingly, the government’s response has been to sow division and publish a divisive and offensive report which downplayed the impact of institutional and structural racism.”
