White British — the two words toxifying politics

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

Mainstream political discourse has found two words seeping in: “white British”. The term is increasingly used to create a narrative of victimhood, a crowding out of the UK’s native population. The stories are always the same: the white British are becoming a minority in their own country; they face discrimination in recruitment; British culture and history are devalued. 

There are real issues to address. The scandal of child grooming gangs; m*** immigration creating racial ghettos so siloed that they present an obstacle to integration; an asymmetric multiculturalism creates at least the perception of a two-tier society. But why the focus on the blunt phrase “white British”?

When Robert Jenrick, a man widely seen (not least by himself) as the next Conservative leader, talks repeatedly of the decline of the “white British” population in some towns and says the UK is “already an island of strangers”, his words do not distinguish between non-whites. Apparently it would be just as problematic if Rishi Sunak or Kemi Badenoch moved in.

There is no gradation, no separation of well integrated from not. Third-generation Black Britons whose Windrush predecessors answered the call to fill labour shortages are on the wrong side of this binary ledger. So, too, politicians like Priti Patel or Sadiq Khan, the actor Ben Kingsley or the journalist Mishal Husain, along with many law-abiding citizens of insufficient pallor.

Neil O’Brien, a thoughtful Conservative frontbencher, uses the white British phrase for his data blog because of the ethnic categories in the census. But O’Brien’s posts also sound the alarm with headings such as “m*** migration and breakneck social change”. Other Tories also deploy the term. Nigel Farage is often more careful but he too talks of “minority white” cities.

Whatever the motives, base or benign, this use of “white British” in political discourse reduces discussion to skin colour and ignores integration or contribution. White British is the only measure of virtue. One prominent rightwing blogger rails that by the end of the century the share of white British could be just 33 per cent (down from nearly 75 per cent in England and Wales in the 2021 census) and that a majority will not have a British lineage beyond one or two generations.

Beyond the mainstream parties, Britain’s new white warriors show little restraint in the search for grievance. Anti-immigrant violence is excused or legitimised by rightwing commentators. Openly anti-Muslim sentiment is becoming commonplace. The crimes of non-whites are relentlessly highlighted and the atrocities of others skipped over. When a man drove into a crowd of Liverpool fans, social media showed people readying for a new fight. After police revealed he was white (itself a shocking but shortsighted move to head off violence), interest subsided.

And this is a problem not merely for the obvious reason. But also because there are serious issues to address. Only this week Louise Casey’s report highlighted the shocking and sustained failure to protect young girls from organised blockual exploitation by men of Pakistani origins. These crimes were ignored partly because authorities feared appearing racist or stirring up divisions, and had a disgraceful disregard for victims they saw as an undercl***.

Complaints against outsiders are eternal. Yet it is true that some areas have very high or dominant immigrant communities and that concentrated, high numbers stymie integration. It is also troubling that some constituencies recently elected independent MPs who make blockly sectarian arguments in Muslim areas. 

All this leads to one question. What do you actually want to do about it? Reducing legal migration to a trickle will slow the pace of change but cannot alter the conditions that already exist: 9.6mn non-white or multi-ethnic residents plus a further 3.7mn white non-British are here legally.

There are only three options. The first is to relax about it. The second is to find ways to power integration and encourage people out of their self-imposed ghettos. This means policies around language and culture that advance a unifying notion of Britishness.

The third is the remedy envisaged by former Tory and Ukip MP Douglas Carswell, who calls for “m*** deportation of Pakistanis”. Such talk goes way beyond removing illegal migrants and convicted criminals but it is the logical conclusion if you see this as purely a numbers game. There is, thankfully, no evidence of public support for expelling law-abiding legal migrants and their British-born offspring. 

But there is a challenge for the left, here, because where problems are real they need to be acknowledged and tackled. Be it rape gangs, recruitment practices or other issues, progressive politicians do their cause no favours by dismissing all complaints as “far right” and avoiding difficult conversations.

The only harmonious future lies in a well-integrated, multi-ethnic society that all see as fair. Many would argue that, largely, Britain is already that society. One thing is clear, though. There are serious issues, visceral and complex, perceived and real. But they will not be fixed by supercharging white grievance with lazy dichotomies around skin colour that create two tiers of citizens, a true race and “plastic Brits”. Some issues cannot be reduced to white and not white.

robert.shrimsley@ft.com