In 2023, Dianne Abbot MP wrote to the Guardian to make a distinction between the racism which black people experience, from the prejudice suffered by Irish, Jewish and Traveller people.

[It is said that]… Irish, Jewish and Traveller people all suffer from “racism”. They undoubtedly experience prejudice. This is similar to racism and the two words are often used as if they are interchangeable.

 It is true that many types of white people with points of difference, such as redheads, can experience this prejudice. But they are not all their lives subject to racism. In pre-civil rights America, Irish people, Jewish people and Travellers were not required to sit at the back of the bus. In apartheid South Africa, these groups were allowed to vote...

She was accused of anti-Semitism and suspended from the Labour Party, with reinstatement only just in time to stand at the last election. She repeated her opinion this month on Radio 4 with the same result. But hers is a confused argument. For centuries, there was blatant racism in America against people from the far east – recognisable by their skin colour and facial features. Jews are immediately identifiable when wearing their Kippur. For millennia Jews have been herded into ghettoes or made to wear signs showing who they were. When Travellers arrive in a village, it is only too obvious what community they represent.

Recognising a person's ethnicity from their appearance or clothing does not change the nature of the racism that results. The treatment they receive is based primarily on what public opinion considers characteristic of that ethnicity: laziness, lack of intelligence, dishonesty, accumulation of money... the list changes with time and continent. Different groups of people in different eras and in different parts of the world have been subject to racism.

We know that simply being black is a good predictor of poor health and social outcomes. The maternal mortality rate for black women is 2.9 times higher than it is for white women in the UK. Black boys in London are far more likely to be dead before 18 than white boys and are over-represented in prisons. No doubt this is due to a many factors, but prejudice is a part of their reality. To regard that prejudice, however, as trumping all other forms of racism has no justification. Many other groups also face challenges based on their ethnic identities.

And even within the dark-skinned communities, both here and in Africa and India, the oppression experienced varies. ‘Colourism’ is a particular form of discrimination within racial groups, where people with a lighter skin tone are likely to receive preferential treatment over those with a darker skin tone.

So then, whilst we have to accept that Diane Abbott was very aware of the effect of the colour of her skin, that does not justify her demanding the top position in the racist disadvantage stakes. She cannot deny other peoples’ experience which can be just as insulting or harmful. So then her opinion is very poorly thought out. Which is disappointing granted that she has been in parliament for so long that she is now the ‘Mother of the House’.

Others though tells us that it is the white people who are most disadvantaged. One such is Matthew Goodwin, a prolific writer on Substack. He is a former professor of politics at Kent University and featured in an article written for Prospect this month. As the article says: “Until a few years ago, he presented himself as a cerebral foe of the authoritarian right. He authored books on the British National Party (BNP) and the UK Independence Party (Ukip). Between 2013 and 2015, he served as an adviser to the government on tackling anti-Muslim hatred. And yet having resigned from Kent University, he is now a right-wing co-presentor with Jacob Rees-Mogg for GB TV. His latest piece describes a visit to Hungary:

“I just spent four days in Hungary, a conservative country criticised by elites across the west. I saw no crime. No homeless people. No riots. No unrest. No drugs. No mass immigration. No broken borders. No self-loathing. No chaos. And now I’ve just landed back in the UK.”

Obviously he managed to miss the many mass anti-government demonstrations there this year.

His main rallying cry, however, is summed up in the title to one of his Substack pieces, published this month: “White Britons will become a minority in this country in the year 2063.” He presented this as a “bombshell finding” and a “demographic crisis”. It’s clear that he wants actually to highlight those with Indian or Pakistani parents. In order to avoid saying so outright, however, his definition of white British excludes anyone with an immigrant parent. This means that neither Winston Churchill nor King Charles would count as white British.

The Conservative would-be leader Robert Jenrick, has lamented the decline of the “white British” population. Last month, David Goodhart, the head of ‘demography, immigration and integration’ at the think tank ‘Policy Exchange’, asked: “Is there some minimum number of natives that a capital requires before it ceases to be the capital?”

Going across the pond there is the even more illustrious person whose lineage is a mixture of Scottish and German. Obviously then he is not white American. And of course he has compounded things by bringing forth a son with a Slovenian top model. Indeed, the whole population of America consists of immigrants.

But Goodwin’s other, related, grouse is that people born overseas, even though naturalised Britons, are not integrating into British society. He wants them to “integrate fully” and not live “parallel lives”. But by continuing to insist that there is a difference in kind between white Brits and non-native Brits, as the right always does, he implies that second and third generation migrants can never be truly British. This is a very strange way of promoting racial integration.

But then the whole idea of public intellectuals is a little problematic. I wonder quite how much light they actually shine on the workings of society. And I am writing this in France, where their intellectuals are more widely known than those in Britain. Apparently, Mr Goodwin has decided to make a living amongst the many narcissists on GB TV vying for the attention of the big boss, Mr N. Farage. I doubt though that Mr Farage has ever been troubled by an intellectual thought or been interested in what the likes of Goodwin say.

He is however a past master at seeing in which direction the crowd is moving and then somehow contriving to place himself at the front as its leader. He is an expert populist. What intellectuals say is of little importance to the expert populist. The intellectuals can theorise all they like, but it is ultimately a very different skill - being able to read the crowd – which is the essence of populism.

In the academic sphere, whether from left, right or centre, arguments can be made as to how society should best be run. Those arguments can be sometimes be argued against as being logically incoherent – such as with Mr Goodwin and Robert Jenrick. Research can be done into the outcomes of previous implementations of proposed policies to see if they worked as intended. And if they didn’t? The counter-argument is almost always that ‘that was a different era’ or that the policy was not correctly implemented. To go even further and show that what are essentially value-judgements are right or wrong is simply not possible. All we can do is say what outcomes we personally find desirable or undesirable.

Hence, we go around in circles trying to prove the unprovable; telling ourselves that our views are obviously correct, but somehow not being able to convince others of that evident truth. I suppose though that academe would lose many of its teaching staff and students if the inherent futility of such debate were recognised. All we can actually do is point students (and the staff?) in the direction of how to engage in critical thinking.

Can you get a degree in critical thinking? Just asking...for a friend.

19 July 2025

Paul Buckingham