Categories: World News

UK PM Johnson Announces Inequality Review After Anti-Racism Protests

In this file photo taken on April 12, 2020 A handout image released by 10 Downing Street, shows Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson as he delivers a television address after returning to 10 Downing Street after being discharged from St Thomas’ Hospital, in central London on April 12, 2020. Pippa FOWLES / 10 Downing Street / AFP.

 

Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday announced a government review into “all aspects of inequality” following a wave of anti-racism protests in Britain, but was accused of using it to delay real action.

Johnson said there had been “huge progress” in tackling racism “but there is much more that we need to do, and we will”.

“It is time for a cross-governmental commission to look at all aspects of inequality — in employment, in health outcomes, in academic and all other walks of life,” he wrote in the Daily Telegraph newspaper.

Britain has been rocked by protests against racial discrimination, some of them violent, following the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, as he was arrested by police in the United States.

In a broadcast interview, Johnson said he wanted to “change the narrative so we stop the sense of victimisation and discrimination”.

READ ALSO: Norway Suspends Virus-Tracing App After Privacy Concerns

“We stop the discrimination, we stamp out racism, and we start to have a real sense of expectation of success.”

But David Lammy, justice spokesman for the main opposition Labour party, said the lack of detail about the new review suggested it “was written on the back of a fag (cigarette) packet yesterday to assuage the Black Lives Matter protest”.

He said the government should focus on implementing the recommendations of numerous reviews already completed, including one by Lammy himself about discrimination in criminal justice.

“Get on with the action, legislate, move!” he urged Johnson in an interview with BBC radio.

“Black people aren’t playing victims, as Boris indicates, they are protesting precisely because the time for review is over and the time for action is now.”

– Tear down the past –

During an anti-racism protest in the city of Bristol, demonstrators pulled down a statue to local slave trader Edward Colston, while in London, a statue to World War II leader Winston Churchill was defaced.

The toppling of Colston’s statue sparked moves by institutions across the country to remove or review monuments to Britain’s colonial past.

But it also drew condemnation from politicians as well as public anger, particularly after Churchill’s statue outside parliament was boarded up to protect it from further protests.

Self-styled “patriots” backed by far-right groups took to the streets in London on Saturday, some of them claiming to defend Churchill’s statue.

Violent clashes broke out and 113 people were arrested, while 23 police officers suffered minor injuries at the hands of people Johnson condemned as “thugs”.

A 28-year-old man was jailed for 14 days on Monday after he pleaded guilty to urinating next to a memorial to a police officer killed in a 2017 attack on parliament.

Andrew Banks admitted one charge of outraging public decency. Photographs of the act caused outrage. His lawyer said he was “ashamed by his action”.

Johnson has written a biography about Churchill and defended him as a “hero”, despite claims his policies led to the deaths of millions of people in a famine in the Indian state of Bengal in 1943.

“We need to tackle the substance of the problem, not the symbols. We need to address the present, not attempt to rewrite the past,” he wrote.

But he added: “Rather than tear down the past, why not add some of the men and women — most often BAME (black, Asian, and minority ethnic) — who helped to make our modern Commonwealth and our modern world? Isn’t that a more cheerful approach?”

Lammy said the statues were a distraction, asking why Johnson was arguing to keep Churchill’s statue when no serious public figure had called for it to go.

“They want a culture war because they want to distract from the central issue,” he said.

AFP

Anthonia Orji

Disqus Comments Loading...
Share
Published by
Anthonia Orji

Recent Posts

Do Not Denigrate Nigeria In Your Sermons, Tinubu Appeals To Religious Leaders

He urged the leaders to be more constructive in their criticism of those in elective…

1 hour ago

Soldiers’ Death: Wanted Delta Monarch Turns Self In

Before he turned himself in to the police, the monarch spoke to journalists, insisting on…

3 hours ago

45 Killed As Bus Plunges Off South Africa Bridge

The vehicle had been heading from neighbouring Botswana to Moria in the north of the…

3 hours ago

CBN Pegs Minimum Capital Base For Banks At ₦500bn 

The apex bank said the new minimum capital base for commercial banks with national authorisation…

5 hours ago

Soldiers’ Killing Oil-Related, DSS Should Lead Probe — Urhobo Leader

The Urhobo leader called for an independent probe into the circumstances that led to the…

5 hours ago

Tyrants Won’t Become Leaders In Parliamentary Democracy — Utomi 

The thought leader noted that thriving democracies in the world practice parliamentary democracy.

5 hours ago