By Ben Kerrigan-
Boris Johnson reportedly had a problem in responding to a controversial report on race due to his “bad track record on the issue”, one of its lead authors of the report has claimed.
In an interview with The House magazine, the chair of the commission, Lord Sewell, who stands by the findings of the report claims Boris Johnson said: “The race thing’s difficult for me.
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The Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities released its conclusions back in 2021 after reviewing racial disparities in Britain following the rise of the Black Lives Matters movement.
The report was subsequently criticised for claiming the UK “no longer” had a system rigged against minorities, with campaigners arguing that it ignored the concerns of people from black and ethnic minorities.
Those concerns were never pitted against the reasons stated for claiming the Uk system was no longer rigged against minorities, neither where any concerns form campaigners specifically spelt out for assessment or debate. In short, clear reasons behind both opposing positions were never made known.
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The British government sat on its official response for a year but promised in March 2022 to “translate the findings from the commission’s report into concrete action”.
The former prime minister has come under fire for some of his previous remarks, including comparing women wearing burqa to “letterboxes” and referring to black people as “piccaninnies” with “watermelon smiles”.
Johnson has always claimed he never meant any harm in making those comments.
Lord Sewell’s remarks in the foreword that “we no longer see a Britain where the system is deliberately rigged against ethnic minorities”, and a suggestion that it found there was no evidence of “institutional racism” sparked uproar among campaigners.
Critics accused the report of being culturally deaf, out of step with public opinion and “steeped in denial”. Lord Sewell previously defended the report, and questioned whether critics had actually read it.
Lord Sewell told the magazine: “He can’t… deliver a nuanced argument about race given his track record,” Lord Sewell told the magazine.
A spokesman for Mr Johnson said there had been a “misunderstanding”, and that he had an “excellent track record”, having commissioned the report himself.
“There was a suggestion that as PM, Mr Johnson should present the report himself,” the spokesman added. “He properly declined to do so as the report was independent of government.”
In the interview, Lord Sewell also revealed he wanted Labour’s shadow foreign secretary, David Lammy, to join the commission to prevent accusations of bias, but claimed the idea was blocked by party leader Sir Keir Starmer.
“What happened is that [Mr Lammy] wanted to do it,” said the peer. “He then went and spoke to Starmer. And then he said, ‘oh well because of the politics I can’t come on’.”
A Labour source called the claim “utter nonsense” and said Mr Lammy never intended to join the commission.
However, this publication reached out to Mr.Lammy’s office to set the record straight, but has so far got no response.
Lord Sewell also claimed the then-minister for equalities, Kemi Badenoch, “wasn’t that comfortable” with recommendations in the report that low-level Class B drug possession offences should be solved through public health solutions.
He did not say how she proposed addressing the matter.
But he said she later accepted “she had to take an independent report and run with it”.
Sunder Katwala, director of think tank British Future, said: “I think Tony Sewell is wrong to say the problems with the race commission were down to Boris Johnson’s past comments on race. The issue with the commission’s report was that it fuelled a polarised debate about the language and not the substance of race.
“It missed an important opportunity to unlock common ground for policy reform to tackle inequalities in education, policing, jobs and health. So it is now up to Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer to pursue that constructive agenda.”
Keir Starmer himself has not commented on the claims, his office has been contacted for comment.
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