CRE chief: Struggle to integrate goes on
Monday, 27 Nov 2006 17:33
Sir Trevor Philips says that Britain is the best place in Europe to live for non-whites
The head of Britain's race watchdog has insisted that 30 years after the passing of the Race Relations Act, the bid to promote integration is still ongoing.
Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) chief Sir Trevor Philips told the estimated 900 delegates at the commission's annual conference that the next 12 months could represent a "platform to provide for the future" in terms of race relations.
In the coming days Sir Trevor will step down as the organisation's chair, with the CRE itself being merged and replaced with the all-encompassing Commission for Equality and Human Rights.
But the conference has been overshadowed by the continuing row between the CRE chief and Ken Livingstone, with the London mayor opting to pull-out of the two-day event at the 11th hour.
The two men first clashed in the wake of the July 7th suicide bombings on London's transport network, with Sir Trevor warning that the country's deep-rooted racial and cultural divisions were being exposed.
But Mr Livingstone accused him of seeking headlines with sensationalist and potentially damaging comments that threatened to undermine racial harmony in the capital and across Britain.
Sir Trevor today used his speech at the Queen Elizabeth II conference centre to reiterate his belief that the country remained segregated in many ways, adding that race and immigration was now the most important issue for Britons, ahead of crime, health, education and security.
Although he admitted that UK residents were "not strangers to police brutality and violence", he insisted that: "Britain is by far – I mean by far – the best place in Europe to live if you are not white."
He went on to say, however, that much work remained to be done, describing Stephen Lawrence's name as an "historic wake-up call to our nation", saying that his murder and the campaign led by his family forever changed Britain.
The CRE chief said: "In politics, contrary to all our hopes, the far right has not gone away. Far from it. Though 72 per cent of voters actively dislike the BNP nearly a million people voted for them in the 2006 local elections."
Sir Trevor concluded: "The time is right for us to be truly radical, to go beyond the begging bowl, to raise our eyes past the ethnic concessions, and to demand that our institutions undertake a deep and thoroughgoing transformation to match the historic change our society is experiencing."