‘Labour is taking the black vote for granted’
Published
by
Richard Kuper
JVL Introduction
The Voice, Britain’s only national black newspaper is measured in expressing its anger at how Labour is treating its black members.
This report simply chronicles a series of failures by the Labour Party on the issue of anti-black racism:
- how Labour’s strategy focuses on white members taking its black and ethnic minority support for granted;
- how funding for anti-black racism training never materialised;
- how Labour has failed to respond to the accusations of racism in the Forde Report; and
- how black activists have been prevented from standing as candidates.
And how the Labour Party, approached ten times during the writing of this article, finally deigned to produce the blandest of bland non-comment comments…
This article was originally published by The Voice on Thu 27 Oct 2022. Read the original here.
‘Labour is taking the black vote for granted’
Sir Keir Starmer’s party watered-down efforts to tackle anti-black racism, according to a whistleblower
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“There is widespread anger among black MPs that Starmer has failed to adequately respond to the Forde Report, which he commissioned, that concluded the party suffered from a hierarchy of racism with Africans and Caribbeans at the bottom”: this account of what the Forde Report supposedly says is simply factually incorrect. The comments about a “hierarchy of racism” (itself a pernicious concept) come on page 81 of the Forde Report, so people can check for themselves exactly what it says. It reports that some people *believe* there is a “hierarchy of racism” and that this needs to be addressed. It does *not* endorse that belief. And it does *not* say anything, in that context, about “Africans and Caribbeans [being] at the bottom.”
Hierarchy of racism is discussed tho9rughout the Forde Report and not just on page 81. It goes much further than reporting a ‘belief’ but details why many Back staff perceive such a hierarchy and implicitly by paying such considerably attention clearly indicates Forde’s acceptance of its reality to framing relations between the Party and its Black staff and members.
It is true that Forde does not say “Africans and Caribbeans [being] at the bottom.” and the article does not claim e does but this is a reasonable interpretation of the disturbing picture he draws.
I am old enough to remember when Labour could honestly be described as the equality Party – this is what it aspired to be. High ranking figures were anti-Apartheid and the UK and the West was decolonising.
Then Blair came along with his wars on Muslim people-of-colour and their homelands, and his victims of torture like Fatima Boudchar.
The Philosopher Michel Foucault wrote about how power expressed itself in zones of spatial dominance and by regulating/controlling the meanings arising from the body. In simple terms, the fact that white politicians while dominating Black/Brown homelands, decided they could do what they like with the bodies of people-of-colour devalued all of us. It made us a subordinate ‘objectified’ object, to be defined within their discourse (not unlike the 19th C).
It’s telling that Blair, Brown & their cronies are one political side yet adversarially opposed to them on the other, are Mandela and Tutu.
That Starmer is blatantly Blairite should be warning enough!