If there’s one consolation we all need to get out of the power Tory leadership competition, it is that race relations in Britain are in a good and healthy state.
Yes, it is true, the country faces several weeks of uncertainty as the process continues. And yes, it is true that the Conservatives are immersed in a fratricidal struggle.
But look at the candidates there and marvel that the so-called ‘nasty party’ has such an impressive diversity of high-ranking politicians in its ranks.
In the original line-up of 11 contenders, six had an immigrant background. As we enter the final phase, there is still a good chance that the UK will have its first non-white prime minister. So naturally something to be admired, something to be proud of?
You would think so – but there is a noticeable absence of celebration of at least a quarter. This breakthrough moment was met with a gloomy silence from the BBC, who, as always, only wants to tell us a negative story about race and identity in Britain.
If it happened in any other advanced democracy – say France, or Sweden, or Germany – the BBC would fall over itself to highlight the admirable diversity on display. As it stands, however, the Corporation seems averse to even mentioning this landmark moment.
Mo Farah, pictured, celebrates winning the men’s 10,000m final at the London Olympic Stadium on the eighth day of the 2012 London Olympics
How come in a week where we’ve seen ‘the British dream’ come true, the BBC still prefers to highlight stories with a negative racial edge?
Why is the BBC so blind to this really positive aspect of our society? At the beginning of the week, the BBC revealed the sad inside story of Sir Mo Farah’s childhood – how he was smuggled into the country to work as a houseboy, a virtual slave to another family’s children.
The personal story of this amazing athlete will have touched millions of hearts and the Interior Ministry was quick to point out that although he arrived here illegally, Farah was no doubt welcome to stay.
Nothing disheartening, host Amol Rajan suggested on Wednesday morning’s Today program – without any source of information – that some people were calling for Farah’s deportation as an illegal immigrant.
“Some people are taking a hard line on these issues,” Rajan told the Olympic gold medalist. ‘[They say] the fact that he came here as a child trafficking victim means he came here without legal permission and the question is whether Mo Farah should remain in Britain today.’
Rajan was referring to the same nameless “people” when he pushed the point further home.
‘What would you say to those people who say that? [your PE teacher] Did Alan Watkinson do something wrong by giving you citizenship under the name Mo Farah?’ (Farah himself has, in fact, made it clear that he and Watkinson have given all the correct information to authorities from the start.)
We were not told where these suggestions came from. Maybe from the dark corners of the internet.
But as meager as the source material was, Rajan chose to put the suggestion in the public domain. And in doing so, he invoked a lurid, mythical Britain, a vile, racist dystopia that seems to be how the BBC sees the country it serves.
Does this match reality? Is ‘deporting Farah’ an opinion often heard on the streets of Britain? Only people who never believe anything good about our country can believe such nonsense.
But that sadly seems to encompass pretty much the BBC’s entire journalistic establishment. Because if there’s one thread that runs through the Corporation’s coverage of race, it’s that we are irredeemably bigoted.
The obsession with identifying racism – even when none exist – allows the Corporation to drag ethnicity and cultural background into the most unlikely of stories.
In the wake of the England women’s soccer team’s impressive 8-0 win over Norway last week, one of the sports presenters, Eilidh Barbour, relieved himself of the following doubt: ‘All the starting 11 players and five substitutes who came on the pitch were all white. , and that points to a lack of diversity in the English team, doesn’t it?’
Was such a comment really necessary? Does anyone really believe that the team coach, Sarina Wiegman, selects players on criteria other than pure ability?
Barbour’s comments strongly reminded me of the 2001 statement by Greg Dyke, the former BBC director general, that the Corporation was “horribly white.” (Dyke was a Labor donor appointed during Tony Blair’s first administration.)
What he said was a mockery. As a BBC reporter at the time, I can say that if there was racism, it was invisible to the naked eye. The news department fell for itself to avoid any stories that portrayed an ethnic minority in a negative light, while relentlessly pursuing each story with a hint of racism.
Today, I think the BBC’s approach to racial matters amounts to actual ‘race-baiting’, which can be defined as any action that ‘attempts to divide or instigate a racial group against others, either for personal glorification or political advantage. ‘.
The Olympic hero reveals a huge secret in BBC documentary The Real Mo Farah
I think some BBC journalists derive a sense of moral superiority from condemning others as racist and – because most BBC people are politically left-leaning – they see political advantage for their part in repeatedly emphasizing racist behaviour, real or otherwise. imagined.
But when good news comes out about race relations – as in March 2021, when the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities found that race relations in the UK are generally quite good – the BBC makes little of it. In fact, I vividly remember the Corporation’s leaden, gloomy coverage of these positive conclusions.
It’s a case of affirmation bias: they want to hear only one story about race – the story spread by the grievances of the left. As former BBC presenter Andrew Marr pointed out, the Corporation’s makeup reflects its central London location, ie liberal, urban graduates work there.
Such people, whatever their academic brilliance, have their own worldview and their own neuroses. Their obsessions are not shared across the country.
The BBC’s unbalanced coverage is damaging. It does nothing to promote good community relations. On the contrary, the unfair criticism makes whites outraged and non-whites anxious.
Meanwhile, in the real Britain, talented blacks and tans go about their lives happily, being welcomed and enjoying success in the Conservative Party – once Enoch Powell’s party.
When Barack Obama became the first black US president in 2008, the BBC’s joy was limitless and eight years of submissive coverage followed.
So if it should happen that Rishi Sunak or Kemi Badenoch win the day, it will be interesting to see if the BBC can get themselves to celebrate a bit.
And the acid test will be if the BBC in the future takes off its blinders and tones down the self-loathing rhetoric.
No one could say race relations in Britain are perfect, but there are few countries in the world where they are better – and that’s really something to celebrate.
- Robin Aitken is a former BBC news reporter and author of The Noble Liar: How And Why The BBC Distorts The News To Promote A Liberal Agenda (Biteback).