Georgia L Gilholy is a journalist.
At least three things in this universe are certain: death, taxes and public relations gaffes. A recent example of the last, whilst barely registering with the press, prompted this week a considerable online backlash.
On Monday, the official LinkedIn profile of the UK’s Social Mobility Commission (SMC) shared the following quote:
“White British working-class children face far fewer challenges than many other communities. Though they encounter snobbery, they are not plagued by racism. They usually speak English from birth and benefit from community ties and deeper roots in a country with the world’s sixth-largest economy. So what is it that’s holding them back? Ingrained attitudes, developed over decades, cause far too many to believe that university is a pointless waste of money.”
It was an extract from an article on the Independent penned by Ryan Henson, a former Tory police and crime commissioner and now a member of the SMC.
Henson’s anecdote about his white, working-class family being less than enthusiastic about him attending university may be true to his experience. He is also correct that simply attending university does not mean a child will eventually earn more than their parents did. Yet his focus on “lack of aspiration” presents just a fragment of the real story.
A 2021 survey did find that more British parents (not just white ones) wanted their children to learn a trade rather than attend university. But this does not mean that they would ostracise their child for choosing the latter path.
Nor does it demonstrate that their preference was wrong. Outside the home, schools and colleges have been pushing teens toward higher education for decades, and more British students attend university than they did 20 years ago. That this has corresponded with a lull in social mobility suggests that parents of all class and ethnic backgrounds should probably be more sceptical of academia, not less.
According to the Institute of Fiscal Studies, social mobility is at a 50-year low. These figures are likely to be somewhat exaggerated, and, it represents a problem that affects all of us, regardless of race.
But just 16 per cent of White British pupils eligible for free school meals leave school with adequate qualifications to even apply for university – the second lowest of any categorised ethnic group. Would the Commission have shared such callous remarks about another ethnic or class group in that position?
These outcomes cannot be explained away by the odd family member making snitty comments about universities. They flow from huge economic and social issues in many parts of the country, especially post-industrial towns in the North and Midlands and rural areas across the UK which have been left behind by our shift to a service-based economy.
Earlier this week the Social Justice Commission’s mammoth report into inequality, which Henson’s column was in part a response to, noted that family breakdown was hitting people on lowest incomes the the most. One charity even alleged that this phenomenon was at the heart of most social issues, telling researchers:
“We [as a charity] exist because the dads have walked away from the mums and the children… Those kids use drugs and get involved in crime.”
It has been obvious for decades that having two married parents, who remain married, is the biggest bulwark against intergenerational poverty. But that’s a harder problem to tackle than “ingrained attitudes” against university.
Henson’s implication that non-white Brits are “plagued by racism”, to the extent it diminishes the relative struggles of white children, is meanwhile a wild exaggeration.
In fact, this country is among the least racist cultures on Earth: a study published by the King’s College London Policy Institute earlier this year found that the UK was one of the least racist countries overall, with just two per cent of Britons feeling “uncomfortable” about living next door to someone with a different racial background.
Last year, meanwhile, the Sewell Report (tasked with investigating whether the UK is institutionally racist) concluded that while racism remains a ‘real force in the UK’, it remains a successful example of a multi-racial democracy. (Lots of people were angered by that; far fewer had any constructive critiques of Tony Sewell’s methodology.)
Worse, Henson’s comparison erases the racial prejudice that some white people do experience. For example, government bodies and major corporations advertise jobs to which only so-called BME (Black and Minority Ethnic) applicants may apply. What does that do for white working-class aspiration?
Nor is it likely to cross your mind that the UK is the world’s sixth-largest economy if you are growing up on a sink estate in Blackpool, with a single parent struggling with their finances, and attending a failing comprehensive school.
Then there were the multiple grooming scandals wherein overwhelmingly white and socio-economically deprived girls preyed upon by predominantly non-white gangs, some of whom admitted to targeting these children because of their racial and cultural origins.
Those girls were failed by social services and the police because the authorities couldn’t, or wouldn’t, take their case seriously, a horrifying example of what can happen when we fall into the lazy assumption that white people cannot be victims the way other groups are.
None of the above implies that the white working class should resort to the reactionary, racialised grievance politics peddled by the far right.
But it shows the iniquities which arise if we make the obverse mistake, and assume on the basis of their skin colour that white communities are less needful of support – or non-white ones of police attention.
This last is especially dangerous, and not just because of cases such as the grooming gangs. Dr Rakib Ehsan, a social integration expert who was among the critic’s of Henson’s piece on Monday, has highlighted how it undermines counter-terrorism:
“While the principal terror threat to the UK comes from Islamist groups and individuals – accounting for three-quarters of MI5’s counter-terror caseload – just one in six Prevent referrals is Islamist-related. It seems that the health and education sectors, which are the chief sources of Prevent referrals, are more concerned with avoiding accusations of racism and ‘Islamophobia’ than they are with tackling the terror threat.”
Meritocracy is both the best means of combating racial prejudice and a very good reason for doing so. Merely shifting the weight of official bias onto white people is not. Quite the opposite: such policies and thinking are a threat to social cohesion.
Sadly, however, they remain de rigueur. In 13 years the Conservatives have done little to halt their spread, and not touched the New Labour legislation, such as the Human Rights Act and the Equality Act, which underpins them.
Now Sir Keir Starmer, increasingly certain to be our next prime minister, is planning to add a Race Equality Bill to the mix. Things can always get worse.