TRIGGERnometry - The Truth About Race Relations in the UK - Rakib Ehsan

Episode Date: October 15, 2023

Dr Rakib Ehsan is a research analyst and writer, specialising in matters of social cohesion, race relations, and public security. He holds a PhD in Political Science from Royal Holloway, University of London. His PhD thesis investigated the impact of social integration on the public attitudes of British non-white ethnic minorities. He is the author of ‘Beyond Grievance: What the Left Gets Wrong about Ethnic Minorities’ available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1800751044/ SPONSORED BY: AG1. Go to https://www.drinkAG1.com/triggernometry/ to get 5 free AG1 Travel Packs and a FREE 1 year supply of Vitamin D with your first purchase! Become a Premium Member to receive exclusive benefits https://triggernometry.supercast.com/ OR Support TRIGGERnometry Here: Bitcoin: bc1qm6vvhduc6s3rvy8u76sllmrfpynfv94qw8p8d5 Music by: Music by: Xentric | [e-mail] | https://www.xentricapc.com/ YouTube:  @xentricapc   Buy Merch Here: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/shop/ Advertise on TRIGGERnometry: [e-mail] Join the Mailing List: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/sign-up/ Find TRIGGERnometry on Social Media:  https://twitter.com/triggerpod https://www.facebook.com/triggerpod/ https://www.instagram.com/triggerpod/ About TRIGGERnometry:  Stand-up comedians Konstantin Kisin (@konstantinkisin) and Francis Foster (@francisjfoster) make sense of politics, economics, free speech, AI, drug policy and WW3 with the help of presidential advisors, renowned economists, award-winning journalists, controversial writers, leading scientists and notorious comedians. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Browse securely. Connect with confidence. Right now, save 83% off the two-year plan. Get started today at IPVanish.com slash audio and take control of your privacy with IPVVVAN. vanish. What is it that the left gets wrong about ethnic minorities? Where would I start? They can't comprehend that there may be racial tensions which don't involve white people. And I think that, you know, which coming from Luton and being raised out, I find bonkers.

If you just look at, you know, providing anti-discrimination protections on the grounds of race, ethnicity and religion, Britain comfortably outperforms other EU countries. Europhiles in the UK, They look at the EU as this sort of almost like a sort of haven of tolerance and openness. Have they never been to France? Whoa. And I think especially a real problem is middle-class progressivism in modern-day Britain because these are people who, I think they almost use racial identity politics as a way to deflect attention from their own position of socioeconomic privilege.

I don't think race is the influential determinant of life chances that many people portray it to be. What is. Hello and welcome to Trigidometry. I'm Francis Foster. I'm Constantine Kissing. And this is a show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people. Our terrific guest today returns to the show for the second time to talk about his new book, Beyond Grievance, What the Left Gets Wrong About Ethnic Minorities.

Ricky Beckson, welcome back. Thank you for having me again. It's great to have you on the show. You've written this book. Looking forward to talking about it. Before we do, remind everybody who are you, your background. How are you talking about this stuff and how did you get here? No, sure.

So without blowing my own trumpet too much, I'm an expert, my backgrounds in social, cohesion, race relations, matters surrounding integration as well. And those are kind of themes that I talk about a great deal in my book, Beyond Grievance, what the left gets wrong about ethnic minorities. And I'd say that my general interest, you know, living most of my life in Luton, is how do you cultivate shared values,

a sense of common purpose in a hyper-diverse society, because the reality is, in my view, diversity is not unadulterated good by any stretch of the imagination. And it's only a strength, really, if you can tie that together, as I said, you know, with those shared values, mutual obligations and a sense of common purpose. And those are the kind of concepts that are really tackling the new book. Can I just say, before we jump in, right, is that if I'd come on here and I'd said that,

I'm an expert in racial integration, mate, it's got a little bit of a different vibe. Yeah. Well, I'm glad you added that. I mean, very important. So, Rakeeb, let's talk about what the left gets wrong about ethnic minorities. And one of the things I actually want to explore with you as well is we've had people, you and people of a similar mindset to you on the show many, many times, as you know. And I think certainly in our world there's a consensus about this issue.

The left gets lots of stuff wrong about race relations and minorities, et cetera. And yet the big cities in this country Which are minority You know heavily populated Strong ethnic minority populations Yeah so London I think is now What 30 something percent So I think it's around

Just over one in three residents in London Are white British Right So if the left is so wrong about ethnic minorities Why do they keep voting for left-wing parties I think it's a very good question I think that that's largely a failing of the Conservative Party I think that for a long time

It's had a very problematic relationship with many of the countries, racial and ethnic minorities. And I think that stems back from Enoch Powell's Rivers of Blood Speech, for example. And also there's a smethic by-election in the same decade where the Tory candidate there main slogan was, if you want for a neighbour, vote Labour. And I think people probably know what that meant. Vote liberal or Labour, yeah.

I think people will know what that racial slur was in that slogan. And I think it really takes time to really rebuild those ties. But I think that the point is with the Conservative Party, they certainly have problems in terms of how they engage with what I would consider be quite socially conservative minorities. And I just don't think they've put the effort in. I think you have people on the right, for example, who say, you know, London has fallen, they go into those Londonistan narratives and all the rest of it.

And actually, if they made a bit more effort, I think that they could cultivate a good amount of support in traditional ethnic minority communities which are quite family-oriented, community-spirited, they're quite conservative when it comes to law and order. And actually, I think then the last mayoral contest between Sadiq Khan and Sean Bailey, I think the Conservatives didn't truly believe in their own candidates,

so maybe they backed him up with the time and resources that might have been a different outcome. It's a really good point, actually, because there was a moment where I thought actually Sean stood a very good chance of winning against the Dek. but the left has also got its problems with ethnic minorities in that there's this narrative in the left that if you don't vote for a left party

in order to quote a very famous philosopher, you ain't black. No, absolutely. I mean, we've seen quasi-quoting, no fan of his economic policy, but there have been parliamentarians who refer to him as superficially black. So that's that kind of, you know,

very divisive notions of, you know, racial authenticity. I think it's a real problem. on the left. And I think that more generally, if you look at Sadie Khan, for example, a lot of people don't actually realize he's not that popular in the capital, especially with ethnic minorities. But I think the question there is, what is their alternative? I think that's where the Conservative Party, they need to have their own, if you actually look at recent electoral results, some of the most promising results that the Conservative Party have had at local level are in Slough, for example. Slough is a majority non-white town. Lester, quote,

recently, they've made quite strong local gains on the council up there. So if you're actually seeing where the Tories are performing quite well in recent elections, it's actually in more ethnically and racially diverse parts of the country. That's really interesting. So coming back to the subject of your book then, what is it that the left gets wrong about ethnic minorities? Where would I start? I mean, I think they're getting a lot wrong at the moment. I think one thing I really wanted to achieve with the book is challenge why I can see be doom and gloom narratives surrounding the lives of racial and ethnic minorities and religious minorities as well in the UK. I think that there's a very good number of identitarian activists which regularly get on

mainstream media. And I think they provide a grossly inaccurate caricature of life in Britain. And I think what I wanted to do with the book is actually say that the picture on the ground is far more positive, whether it's having strong attachments to British national identity, performing well at school, doing well in the labour market. A lot of people are still very surprised when I tell them, for example, that one of the two of the highest-earning groups now in one day Britain are workers of Chinese and Indian origin. Their average hourly pay outperforms the white British mainstream. And I think when you're actually looking at, you know, that sense of belonging, Crest Advisory did a recent study which show that three and four British Muslims think

that Britain is a good place to live as a Muslim. And I tell people that, and they're very surprised. And you have to ask, why are they surprised? Interestingly, that figure drops right down for non-Muslims. So actually, non-Muslims are more likely to think that Britain is an Islamophobic society compared to British Muslims themselves. But those kind of narratives, I don't think, get much exposure in the mainstream media. Do you think part of the problem is, is that we've got these whole, these entire raft of political commentators who get wheeled out on these chat shows like Good Morning Britain to essentially push forward this narrative that Britain is close to Nazi Germany and are where a white supremacist nation.

Well, we've seen the European research group in the Conservative Party be compared to Nazi Germany and apartheid South Africa, which is just, it's absolutely remarkable. And I think the more generally, and I wouldn't say that I look at Britain through roast-inted spectacles, I still think there's improvements to be made when it comes to racial equality. I'm sure we'll discuss that later on in the conversation. But if you just look at providing anti-discrimination protections on the grounds of race, ethnicity, and religion, Britain comfortably outperforms other EU countries, such as France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and Italy.

So you see, post-Brexit Britain outperforms a string of EU member states where you have, well, could say, Europhiles in the UK. they look at the EU as this sort of almost like a sort of haven of tolerance and openness. Have they never been to France? Well, and this comes to my point that in France, actually, in France you have that sort of republican model of, you know, colour-blind egalitarianism, licea, which I consider to be a militant form of secularism. And what that's actually produced is this mainstream political culture,

which doesn't want to acknowledge very real forms of racial and religious discrimination. Now, Britain for all its flaws, at least we have, in my view, we have an infrastructure in place, which actually takes equality of opportunity quite seriously, in my view, that the sort of discrimination in terms of its salience as an issue shows in a way Britain's commitment to providing a more equal and fairer society. You don't even have those debates in France. So we have the Office for National Statistics, which shows outcomes, you know, in terms of racial and ethnic disparities.

You don't even have that in front. Well, I mean, that's not really a surprise, like Constantine said. But so let's talk about what needs to be improved. What do we need to work on? What are the areas where we're not doing as well as we should be when it comes to integration? I think that we have a serious problem when it comes to integrating newcomers in particular parts of the country.

I think last year we had the large-scale public disorder in Leicester, for example, just primarily between Hindu and Muslim youths. So I think that integration has almost become a political orphan in a way, it doesn't get talked about as much as it should by the two major political parties. I think we have a Labour Party which talks a bit too much about difference and celebrating that. I think the Conservative Party in a way just maybe paralysed by its own history when it comes to race relations, not very comfortable when it comes to talking about matters of integration. I think that in terms of the improvements, I'll give you an example.

I think in the labour market, names which are culturally distant, maybe constant, in Kissin or Raki Busson, for example. They tend to fare that bit worse compared to traditionally English-sounding names. I don't know, maybe Francis Foster, for example. So, and that holds up in a number of studies, even when you control for work experience, skills, and educational qualifications. So something I argue for in the book is that we need to have more name-blind applications in the labour market.

People still ask, but what happens when you get to the interview? They'll see that you're Asian or black. But at least there, you have the opportunity, you have more of an opportunity to get to that stage and then you can prove yourself in person. I think that would be an important development. I think in terms of policing, and it's a very complex issue, policing more generally.

I think stop and search. If the police genuinely believes that this is an effective instrument in terms of combating knife crime, it needs to cultivate public support and communicate more with local communities to say, we think this is genuinely needed. And then you can police by public consent. So I think those kind of improvements would be most welcome in my view.

Rakeep, can I ask you on the stop and search thing? Because it's kind of hard to know. Like you mentioned that there's a media narrative about slumophobia where non-Muslims are more persuaded by that narrative than Muslims. How true is it that ethnic minority communities are outraged by the idea of stop and search? Because we've also had people on the show who will tell you, you know, you go to a community, let's say a black community, area in London, a lot of the local population are really keen on stop and search because it's

their children that are being stabbed. Oh no, absolutely. I think that when it comes to stop and search more generally, there are disparities. That's obvious. But ultimately, if you're using that as an instrument to fight knife crime, there's a degree to how equal you can be when it comes to policing. You have to see where are the hotspots and, you know, what are the, how do you say, the socio-demographic characteristics associated with a particular form of crime? The reality is in London, young black males are disproportionately represented among perpetrators and victims of knife crime. And that that's naturally going to guide the way you police particular areas. And I've even said that maybe we should have body-worn cameras more widely in the mayor.

So we just increase the sort of accountability and responsibility when it comes to policing. But you're absolutely right that when it comes to law and order, you'll find some of the strongest conservative values are within ethnic minority communities. And you have my own ethnic group, British Bangladeshis, they have one of the highest rates of confidence in the local police force. And that's a Muslim majority ethnic group as well, by the way. So I think that when you actually look at law and order more generally, ethnic minorities, they ultimately want fairness.

But crucially, they care a great deal about the security and safety of their local communities. If you really wanted to go in the deep end and you wanted to talk about support for the death penalty, I'd suspect actually it'd be higher in many ethnic and religious minority groups compared to the more secularised white British mainstream. Well, definitely. It's such a good point because my mum's an ethnic minority and she'd kill about a third of this population if she had her way, you know. So it's very true. They tend to be far more

punitive when it comes to law and order. But I also think that the way we talk about, you know, talking about ethnic minorities, which encompasses someone like my mother, who's the first generation immigrant from South America, and also, for instance, a third generation immigrant from the Caribbean or from West Africa. Let's talk a little bit more in specific. So what do we know about each group? It depends on which metric you're looking at. I think firstly, I'll make the point that the BAME acronym are absolutely useless and redundant, in my view, in terms of understanding the reality on the ground in modern Britain. Now people are trying to wheel out this global majority, you know, these kind of phrases to try and replace it.

The reality is that ethnic and racial minorities, there may be certain values that they share across the board. One value that they'd often share is that, irrespective of which group you belong to, being an ethnic minority in the UK, your far better position than being an ethnic minority in other countries such as France, Germany, and the Netherlands, and the United States as well,

something that I'd touch upon in the book. But if you actually look at educational performance, how are groups performing at school, labor market integration, trust in public institutions. There's a great deal of variance between different ethnic and racial minorities. I'll give you one statistic. If you look at children aged up to 15 years, you know, the rate of lone parent households that they live in. The rate of lone parent households, when it comes to children of that age of Indian origin, it's 6%.

6% live in lone parent households. That goes up to 63% for their peers of Black Caribbean origin. So you can see there, they would all come under a collective BAME umbrella term. But you can see there's huge disparities there. There's also huge disparities when it comes to performing at school, especially pupils of Chinese origin, if you were to compare them with gypsy Roma children. Huge disparity.

But they technically all fall under the ethnic minority label. And I think that that's the point I make, that actually you see that on certain social and economic metrics, you have certain non-white ethnic minorities performing better than the white British mainstream, which is why I'm not sure how useful white privilege theories are in the modern British context. But there's very clear differences between those groups, and that's something I really wanted to underline in the book, because then that moves the conversation towards what helps to shape life chances in modern-day Britain.

In my opinion, some people may find this quite controversial. I don't think race is the influential determinant of life chances that may be. many people portray it to be. And what is? I think family structure is a huge one for me, you know, the kind of values which are cultivated in the household, the degree of family stability. That's not just family structure, that's culture what you're talking. That's also culture, family structure and culture. But there's a degree of overlap, possibly, between the two. But I'm keen to emphasize that point because it's not just about, you know, more people staying together. It's also about what are you teaching your children.

Exactly. And that's very important. And I think that, also shapes your attitudes towards marriage as an institution. Some people may be more individualistic when it comes to approaching marriage. Other people might think, well, actually, there's a great deal of self-sacrifice required here, but I'm willing to take that on. That might be shaped by their faith or their cultural values. But I think that there is that overlap between family stability and culture. But crucially, when it comes to culture, for example, how is education valued in the household? If you're looking at the local community, what are the markers of social status? I think we have some very problematic subcultures in London, if truth be told, which actually glorify,

well, I see even just guys far as saying the glorification of violence, hypermaterialism. And also cultural values towards outer wedlock births, one of the strongest predictors of of lone parent households or whether or not children are born in wedlock or not. Now, the reality is in certain ethnic communities, ethnic minority communities, having children outside of marriage is very controversial to be found upon in other groups. it's almost become the norm, if we're being absolutely honest. I think those kind of cultural dynamics, they may be controversial, and some people may find it to be sensitive to talk about,

but I do think that it's worth having that conversation in terms of how they shape live chances and the progression of young people more generally. Yeah, well, definitely, sorry, Francis, it's definitely the case, because, I mean, if you want... This is what always bothers me about this patronising attitude to, I think, minorities, where it's like, no one actually cares about outcomes.

People care about how good they look, saying things. Absolutely. Right. Whereas if you actually care about outcomes, you would go, well, as you say, the BAME acronym, which is ridiculous,

incorporates all sorts of different groups with different sets of behaviors and different outcomes. So what might we observe would be a good way to behave and might we not suggest that most people should behave that way. Do you see what I mean?

But we don't have that conversation. We don't, because I think some people, they're paralyzed by cultural and moral relativism. Now, let's be absolutely clear, certain cultural values, in my view, are just better than others. That's the truth of it, right? And I think if you really, and I'll make this point, if you really care about young black lives, especially in inner city, London, you would talk about family structure and community culture that little bit more, in my opinion.

And I think it's very interesting because when you're talking about those disparities that we're referring to earlier, If you look at school outcomes, level of education attainment, pupils of black African origin are now performing better than the white British mainstream. Their co-racial peers of Black Caribbean origin are performing worse than the white British mainstream. So it can't be race. It can't be simply a matter of racial discrimination. I mean, that would be bizarre to suggest that. But we do have people who suggest that.

And I think that's where you have to look at sort of family values, community attitudes towards education. I think parental assertiveness, I think a lot of people talk about, you know, children need to be, you know, they need to be encouraged to be creative and innovative, you know, free thinking and all the rest of it.

That's all well and good, but they need to have a strong base. There has to be that sense of discipline and order in the household. And there needs to be an understanding that, in my opinion, in the mainstream, I think there's far too many parents who want to be their kids' mate.

Right? And listen, my mum's my best friend, but there's also clear understanding that within that friendship, there's a very clear parent-child relationship, and that's based on order and hierarchy. Now, those kind of terms sound very old-fashioned and reactionary, but I think they're necessary when it comes to talking about, you know, keeping your children on the straight and narrow and making sure that they progress well in life. And I think that these kind of debates on the left, they're shunned, if truth be told, a lot of these values are seen as almost oppressive. And I think that's something that needs to change. I agree with you it needs to change. Why is that? Why are we so love to engage in these types of conversations

when the reality is we all know it's basic common sense? Well, perhaps we know it's basic common sense, but I think that many people, they'd rather, they're more interested in appearing virtuous in the public domain. Now, I've never been interested in that, as you can probably tell. I get vilified for making some of these arguments. And I think especially a real problem is middle-class progressivism in modern-day Britain because these are people who, I think they almost use racial identity politics

as a way to deflect attention from their own position of socioeconomic privilege. Many people are actually insecure about their privilege. I just think, listen, enjoy your privilege, you know, but don't get in the way of effective social policy, right? And if you are insecure about it, I don't know, maybe see a therapist, you know, sort that out yourself. And I think a real problem here is that what racial identity politics does, it offers them an opportunity to appear rebellious without risking the destabilization of their own class-based interests and advantages. When I think in my view, the left does, still doesn't talk enough about class, class-based barriers. we do live in a fairly unequal country.

I think we should make that point. And I think more generally, when you're looking at these outcomes, I've talked a great deal about family structure, community norms. I think geography comes into it. I think that there's many communities which are predominantly white British. They're just, they're cut off. They're isolated. They're left behind.

They're certainly not part of the digital economy, you could say. And they're really lacking the sort of social infrastructure you'd need in order for young people to succeed and maximise their potential. So I think at the moment we have this over-focus on race and we're largely overlooking, in my view, very important factors which shape life chances in modern Britain. And there's the familiar conversation that we always have about white privilege, which has been, like a lot of this stuff,

imported directly from the States. Oh, absolutely. You know, just placed on this country and you just go... This bears absolutely no reflection on what is really going on here. Well, I've seen blogs about white privilege published on NHS websites, which I just think it's absolutely remarkable. Because if you travel around the country and you see whether NHS is really crumbling, it's in those left behind impoverished, predominantly white British communities.

If you're going to go into those communities and start lecturing them about their racial privilege, it's going to fall on deaf is, or actually they're going to find it quite offensive. I think I'm actually really struggling in my local community here and the NHS services here are not particularly good and I think that once again when it comes to those kind of theories I think they're hugely divisive but it's pseudo-intellectualism it doesn't really give you much of a grounding

to truly understand why those ethnic and racial disparities exist in our country and I'll give you another example we've talked before about the various grooming gang scandals You know, people want to talk about power structures, you know, structures of oppression, all the rest of it. You can very clearly see where the power dynamics lied in those interactions. The very clear cases of group-based child sexual abuse, which are also grossly mismanaged by public institutions that prioritise political correctness

and racial and religious sensitivities over the bread and butter of protecting the most vulnerable. Where's the presence of white privilege in those particular cases? I don't see much evidence of it. We'll be back with the interview in one minute. First, we want to talk to you about the sponsors of today's episode, AG1. We take AG1 to stay healthy and stay off illness whenever our schedule gets really busy. We used it on our last America tour where we were constantly on the move, living out of a bag and working every day.

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That's drinkag1.com slash trigonometry to claim this special offer. Rikip, do you think that, well, you say that we live in an unequal country, and I think that inequality is actually not race-specific. I mean, there will be outliers, of course. Do you think we underestimate how well we're doing when it comes to race relations, having a very multi-ethnic society actually getting along

because most other parts of the world when you have multi-ethnic societies you kind of have to use a lot of violence to keep things in check actually or violence will erupt naturally. We've stayed away from that. Do you think we underestimate how well we're doing? I think that there's lots of positives to take.

I think that we made significant progress when it comes to racial equality over the last 25 years. the majority of ethnic minority people, according to a recent report published by British Future, which marked the 75th anniversary of Winrush, showed that. It was around two in three ethnic minority people believe that we'd made significant progress

when it comes to racial equality. And four in five believe that when it comes to being an ethnic minority, it's better to live in the UK compared to France, Germany and the United States. And I think that it's really important to, understand that and appreciate that. Because many ethnic minority people, as you know, they have family in those countries as well.

So they have sort of international family networks. I'm sure they have, you know, within my own family network, we have discussions about these kind of things. So, and generally ethnic minorities, people make the point that they're fairly well educated, so they're able to form their own independent opinion on these issues. It's really interesting that I flagged this data. And in my view, self-hating pseudo-intuitive,

intellectuals of Twitter said, oh, but how would they know? They haven't lived in those countries and all the rest of it. So, and sort of nice people's racism, you know, the ethnic minority Brits, they're not able to formulate their own opinions. They don't fly anywhere. Absolutely. When actually, they probably fly more because of the internationalized nature of their family networks. And I think that in terms of, you know, the progress that we've made, I think that we should be proud of that. That should be a source of national pride. But saying that, We did have, for example, last year's large-scale public disorder in Leicester. We've seen what's happened in Peckham as well.

Yes. So tell everybody, because some of our audience will follow that. There's an unfortunate incident at Peckham hair and cosmetics. And it's obviously not an establishment that I'm not familiar with this reason. So essentially, it's an Asian-owned business. There's a very interesting dynamic in Peckham where there's far more black residents than Asian people that live in the area. And by the way, just for our American viewers, sorry to interject.

Sure, no. What you mean by Asian is people. Okay, so what I mean by Asian is people of subcontinental heritage, South Asian heritage. So we're talking about India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka as well, those kind of countries. But what's interesting that a lot of the businesses that cater for the specific cultural needs, you could say, for black residents living in the area are actually Asian owned. So what happened, unfortunately, at this establishment was that there was a, black lady who was accused of taking goods that she hadn't paid for. Apparently she was upset with

the establishment's refund policy. And unfortunately, this led to a fiscal altercation with the Asian owner of the business, who has a Muslim background. And there was a great deal of attention. Afterwards, there were protests outside the establishment. And that included racially motivated slurs being left at the front of the establishment, go to Hell Patel. There's a reference to parasitic merchants have to be rooted out the local community, sort of echoing the kind of vilification of Asian business owners by Idi Amin, the Ugandan dictator, who expelled Asians only gave them 90 days before they could leave the country. So I think when you look at those kind of incidents, it's very interesting for me,

because I think the biggest thing from that particular incident was that we had this sort of de facto decriminalisation of lower level crime in many urban areas. The country has a shoplifting epidemic, in my view. And I think that was the big takeaway from that. But you can see that people saw that through a racial lens. I was understandable because there have been similar episodes in places such as Birmingham, especially the Lozels area, where there's a great deal of disillusionment, you could say. And I'd go as far as saying resentment within black communities, especially of African,

Caribbean heritage there, you know, businesses being bought up by Asian origin entrepreneurs. And then actually, you know, there's a shift in the sort of ethnic and racial ownership of businesses there. And then there were the sort of accusations of, you know, most, many of the shoplifters belonging to the African Caribbean population, Asian shopkeepers being accused on not treating their black patrons and customers very well. So you could see that those kind of complaints emerged in Peckham as well. So I think it shows that there are racial tensions which are obviously involved. But I think that the broader, or rather the central problem for me is how,

there's a real lack of local neighborhood policing in areas with the high concentration of shops, and all too often that leads to, well, people can, you can call them customers. But in my view, these are people who are taking liberties, to be honest. And many businesses are already feeling the pinch because of the cost of living crisis. They're now having to deal with this de facto decriminalization where many shoplifters, to be honest, get away with what they're doing. Well, that was the curious thing to me, because you know how when you're a kid you go to the playground,

you get into scuff with another kid or whatever, your mom will be the one telling you off and his mom will be the one telling him off, right? What I found odd about this is like this is someone who is committing a crime who is essentially a representative of their community by virtue of their skin color. It's inevitable.

People will see it like that. What I find interesting is why the community doesn't say, well, this person's a criminal, they don't represent us. In fact, we're going to tell them off and get them on the straight and narrow so that people of our background aren't stealing things from shops. Why is no one having that conversation? I think there are some black British individuals who did flag that, but they weren't especially high in number. Yeah. And I think what that really shows is that there's a great deal of, what are going to be, racial tribalism. But the truly toxic thing about this racial tribalism is that you're ultimately asking for preferential treatment,

over illegal forms of illegal behavior. And I think what was quite remarkable was how, and by the way, the lady in question behaved quite aggressively towards the shopkeeper before she was apprehended and by him. And I think it was just absolutely remarkable that she was being portrayed as the victim when she was engaging in behaviour,

which was deeply inappropriate. And I think that what really concerns me is that you have people who look to, excuse deeply inappropriate forms of behaviour because that particular person might share their racial or ethnic background. And I think that's a very serious problem. I think that social cohesion is at its healthiest and at its strongest when people are willing to face up to very uncomfortable realities

within their own racial, ethnic and religious communities. And I think that's something that I have quite a, I'd like to think I have quite an impressive record on. I've written a great deal about Islamist extremism and the threat it poses to modern Britain and more widely the Western world. I've also talked about attitudes towards women in more closed-off elements of British Bangladeshi communities. And that's not to say there's not good going on in those communities as well. I've written a great deal about that. But I think if there's problematic trends within your own racial, ethnic and religious community, you should flag them, that that's the truth of it.

Because other people who may well see those trends, they may feel uncomfortable. They don't want to be accused of being racist or Islamophobic. But I think you should take it upon yourself. And what I saw with Peckham, actually, you saw people excusing this behaviour, expressing solid. But what was really interesting, he had running me trust and organisation

I used to respect a great deal when I was growing up, the so-called leading, independent, race-quality think tank in the country. expressing solidarity with the lady in that particular episode. With the shoplifter. And I just think that what about the Asian owned business? What about the Asian business business? Forget about everyone's race.

What about expressing solidarity with a shop owner whose shop is being robbed? Absolutely. And expressing condemnation for the person who's robbing the shop. And the shopkeeper also faced racial discrimination, which we talked about as well. So if you're the leading independent race equality think tank, I think you'd at least flag those issues, those racist messages. So reading between the lines of all of this, Ricky, what I'm hearing from you is you're saying,

we've done really well, but actually one of the problems we're having is inter-ethnic minority tribal conflict. I think so. And I think that... And this is something that I hope not hate. Usually I'm not the biggest fan, if truth be told. But they did do a really good study during the pandemic

which showed that ethnic minorities are twice more likely to agree than disagree with the statement that social tensions are stronger between ethnic minorities than between non-white groups and the white mainstream. And so I think many ethnic minority people are fully aware of those tensions between non-white groups. You saw it in Leicester primarily between Hindu and Muslim youths of South Asian origin. And I think that's the real problem. And I think that there's this import.

we're talking about importation of US racial identity politics, there's also an importation of foreign territorial disputes from the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent, communal tensions from South Asia as well. And that's very troubling, because what it does, it does, if that's not addressed, social cohesion can unravel very quickly in the more diverse parts of the country.

And you were saying earlier about Singapore, for example, very authoritarian when it comes to law and order. But I'll say that, that's quite a successful, multi-ethnic, multi-faith democracy, which is very economically productive as well. And I do think that in more diverse parts of the country where they're very competitive local economies, I do think you need strong localised law and order

just to keep things in check. And I think currently that's missing from many parts of the country. And the other problem is that we're just not willing to talk about it. Because when we talk about tensions, we always, always white black, white Asian. Absolutely. It's very binary. Yeah. And we don't talk about this. Why don't we talk about it?

I think many people can't comprehend. I don't think they recognise it. I don't think many people can comprehend it. They can't comprehend that there may be racial tensions which don't involve white people. And I think that, you know, which coming from Luton and being raised in, I find bonkers. But many people are genuinely of that mindset.

They're of that view. Or simply, it could just be ignorance. They're not truly aware of it. Do you know what? I will tell you this. Until we started the show, I, having not thought about it very much, believed there was such a thing as the black community. It's a myth. But it's only when you start to, oh, go, wait, Afro-Caribbean people are very different to African people.

But it's actually a form of, I mean, it's not racism per se, but it's a form of ignorance about the complexity of all. all of these different roads. It reminded of a study that I did a couple of years ago, it showed that one in six people of black Caribbean origin have an unfavorable view of people of black African origin. One in six is quite a high. I mean, it's around 16%. And I think that really shows

the tensions within the black British population as well. And I think that it's similar to black community, Muslim community. People know that there's some denominational tensions within the British Muslim population. There's also ethnic tensions as well. And there's also class-related tensions within these so-called communities.

So much of this is overlooked. And I think many people, and I think the biggest problem is really that there's many members of our political establishment. They're either not understanding of these dynamics. They don't understand it. Or they know about it, but they don't want to raise it. They don't want to raise it because that would mean they'd have some very uncomfortable conversations

in their local sort of surgeries and all the rest of it. So they'd rather ignore it. And it's far easier just to talk about racism and bigotry in the English countryside. Yeah. And I remember once we had a little boy in my class when I was teaching and he was stealing. That's what he was doing. It happens in school. and I remember my teaching assistant was Nigerian

and so we caught this boy and we gave him a dressing down all the rest of it so you shouldn't do this, brought mum in, had a chat the problem was solved and I remember when he walked out of my classroom once she just turned around and looked to me and went this is what Congolese people do. The teaching assistant, not the mother.

Not the mother. No, but the teaching assistant said to me the Nigerian heritage teaching assistant. saying this is what Congolese people do, they're all thieves. It also doesn't come as a surprise to me, though. Yeah. And that's the thing, even with the wider black African category, you're talking about first generation,

you're talking about first generation, well-established Christian migrants from West Africa. You're also talking about, you know, maybe recently arrived refugees who follow Islam coming from countries such as Somalia, fleeing civil unrest. But they're all technically in the same ethnic category. which is incredibly diverse. It is. And really, I think

the problem comes as well is then when you put identity politics on top of that, it just toxifies the whole debate, doesn't it? Because part of the problem, if we go back to Peckham, is that people are seeing themselves as one group against another group. Oh, no, no, absolutely. And I have a black friend of Nigerian origin.

He talked to me about anti-blackness in South Asian communities. I said, never mind anti-blackness. I mean, do you have some South Asian families? They'll reject their child's, you know, proposed choice of marital spouse on the grounds of his or her skin colour. They might belong to the same ethnic and racial group. They're not even interested in understanding about their character, personality, career, vision for the future.

You know, if they're not happy with their skin colour, oh, you know, I don't want my grandchildren to be too dark. These are the kind of sentiments that do exist in modern Britain. And these are tensions within the same ethnic and racial group. So it doesn't come as a surprise to me. You're talking about the Nigerian heritage teaching assistant, who unfortunately didn't have a high opinion of people of Congolese origin. It just doesn't come as a surprise to me.

Because within the African continent, you know, we know. It can be incredibly the sort of tribal tensions, you know, opinions of other people who may originate from a different region of Africa. Everyone hates their neighbours, it's quite normal. You know, if you look around any part of the world. So I think that generally, if you're talking about We're a relatively successful multiracial democracy.

I would make that point. But I do think these kind of tensions, they're often overlooked, and that they are problems. In terms of maintaining social cohesion, hyper-diverse areas, many of our politicians simply won't like to talk about it because it's far easier just to talk about white privilege

or talk about racism in the white British mainstream. And often I'll make this point, that some of the sharpest social tensions in our urban areas do not involve white British people at all. Hey guys, trigonometry needs your help. We took a big risk creating the show, and for us to keep doing the incredible work that you all love, we need your support.

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Support us and have to help. help change the way we have conversations and make the world saner. I think a lot of the problem comes from the fact is that we're not comfortable discussing issues or problems that are actually live at the moment. It's far easier to talk about issues or problems that were more relevant 40 years ago. So, for instance, talking about white supremacy, of course, there are white supremacists still in this country. But if you think 40 years ago, when I grew up in South London, there were the NF, there were the BMF, they were the BMP. These people were mainstream. They were outside football matches handing out leaflets.

The NF, I don't think they even exist anymore. No, I mean, I think that I'll give you another example. The University of Leicester will be involved in a project on rural racism. And I just think, did you not just see what happened on your doorstep last year? I would have thought that you'd maybe focus your time, energy and efforts on communal tensions in Leicester, in the inner cities of Leicester, seem to be more. more focused on so-called racist attitudes in the English countryside and rural communities, I just would think that if the University of Leicester, they would maybe have different priorities if they wanted to do research, if they wanted to do work on how to maintain and strengthen social cohesion, they'd focus more on what's going on their doorstep.

And I think it really shows that it's comfort zone. It's comfort zone activity, isn't it? It's far easier to talk about, oh, you know, what's the level of racism? Blaby or O'Dby or this or that and all the rest of it, you know, the sort of more rural outskirts, you know, rural parts of Leicestershire, as opposed to actually talking about, or the spilling of subcontinental style communalism on the streets of an English regional city, I would have thought they'd have been more likely to focus on that. But then I also know how far gone some elements of the academic sector are on these kind of issues.

And the problem is, is that it's almost impossible, really, for a white upper-measurial. or class person to talk about this because there's a very easy way to shut them down and we know what that word is and they can't take part in the debate or the discussion. Yeah, no, I agree. And I think that that's one of the things I really don't like. You know, when we're having these debates on

sort of diversity, equality and inclusion, they're actually deeply exclusionary of white men, more generally. I think it's very interesting. You saw that with the Royal Air Force. They wanted to boost the diversity of their, you know, it's sort of their recruitment they wanted to appeal more to women and ethnic minorities.

But in doing so, they actually found that they're unlawfully discriminating against white men. And there's one recruitment officer in the RAF that referred to useless white male pilots, a very specific form of discrimination focused on race and sex. And I think that what it really shows, I think that diversity politics in my view is incredibly divisive as opposed to being inclusive. I think that it's hugely exclusionary. And I think that you see, and it's even things like safe spaces, which is very much an import

from the United States. This is modern day segregation. And then you're seeing that being proposed in Britain. And I just don't want to see that take root at all, especially on university campuses, which I think is very much focused on the sort of free flow of different ideas, information exchange and all the rest of it. For students to be divided, to talk about sensitive matters of history, to be separated along racial lines. I just don't think that's right at all. And coming back to your point about

community tensions between different ethnic groups, it sounds like what you see is the answer to that is essentially a robust enforcement of the law combined with the inequality under the law. In other words, it doesn't really matter what your skin color is. If you commit a crime, the police are going to be there and they're going to deal with you. Is that kind of... No, absolutely. Listen, I make this point, For example, when I talked about earlier about colourism within South Asian communities, unfortunately you're just going to have those kind of old-fashioned attitudes among certain members of a particular generation. I'm not saying that the police should get involved in those issues.

But I think we should be aware that racism and bigotry can exist in all sorts of communities. I think that's the point that I'd make. And I think that there's a concerted effort to deflect attention away from those problematic attitudes, and I don't think that's right. because I do think sunlight is the best disinfectant. I think maybe if you expose those kind of attitudes, maybe you helped to facilitate the social change that you'd like to see.

We're not talking about law and order enforcement in that area. Not in that area, but you're talking about clashes on the streets. Clashes on the street. I'll make that point with Lester. The local constabulary there was woefully underprepared for something like that. You had a lot of out-of-town troublemakers as well from London and Birmingham.

So we also have to talk about how a police force is communicating with one another. across the country when it comes to those kind of incidents. So the reality, if you are supportive of modern-day diversity, I do think there has to be a degree of conservatism when it comes to law and order. I think the issue that you have is that you have a lot of pro-diversity advocates. And something we haven't talked about yet is immigration as well.

I think that if you really want to maintain high levels of social solidarity in a multi-ethnic, multiracial, multi-faith society such as ours, you need to reduce the pace of social change that we're seeing in many parts of the country. And a lot of people think, how could Rackett possibly say this? He associates himself with the left. But I also think that I also care about sustaining the welfare state.

And the reality is if you want to make sure that you have an all-encompassing, well-funded welfare state in place, I think that you need to have a stable national membership. And that requires having a sensible and well-ordered immigration system. I also think it means you need to have an asylum, system which prioritises those who are very much in need, the world's most vulnerable peoples. We're not seeing that with the small boats emergency on the English south coast. That's very much male

dominated. I think in 2022, two in three small boats migrants were males aged 18 to 39. Many were coming from countries such as Albania. Albania hasn't had a civil war since 1997. So I think what I'm basically getting at is that in order to have a true, truly successful democracy, which is diverse and advanced, you need to be conservative in certain areas, namely immigration and law and order. And this was always, you know, this was the left's thing. This was always what the left were talking about,

projecting workers' rights by reducing immigration, supply and demand. That's why there was that entire branch of the left who voted for Brexit. And also as well, and this is what we don't like to talk about, But a lot of immigrants from my own family, from immigrants that I've spoken to, not too keen on immigration. Especially illegal immigration. They're not keen on illegal immigration because many went through the correct assessments.

Who is keen on illegal immigration? But I think the point is that first generation migrants may be especially sensitive to legal immigration because they've gone through the proper procedures, even included English language assessments. They may have to submit various forms of documentation before legally relocating. I'm one of them. I get triggered. the concept that these people just think, oh yeah, we should be, people should be allowed to come in illegally.

Yeah, so they, they fulfilled their obligations before legally relocating to the UK. Right. So when they see the scale of illegal immigration on the English South Coast, they may well view it as a form of queue jumping. Yeah, and they may be especially sensitive to it. And I think more generally, when it comes to immigration, I wrote a piece for Unheard, which, I made the point that it's actually Labor's Asian origin heartlands, who are also quite conservative when it comes to immigration, the majority of voters in those constituencies, including mine of Luton North, they think immigration is too high. Yeah.

And I think the idea that conservative attitudes towards immigration are the preserve of white Brits. Well, sorry, you didn't understand Brexit very well either. What was very interesting is that you saw these London-based journalists after Brexit, oh God, we need to find some Brexit voters. God, where are they? Where do I find them? They go to pubs in northern England, they go to working men's clubs in the provincial midlands. All you have to do is go to some of the Mondays and Guaduas in West London. You'd have found your fair share of leave voters right there.

And I think it's a fundamental misunderstanding of many people couldn't comprehend how Brexit even took place. But some of the most conservative attitudes that I've come across towards immigration, law and order, asylum as well, they come from established migrant communities. And I think that's something that's not talked about all that much. But it makes complete sense, because when you think about it, they look at it and go, look, I came here as an immigrant, I worked really hard, I paid into the system, I've set up a business, I've raised a family. Absolutely. And then there's people coming here on boats, and they're not going through any of that. No.

They're just turning up. Absolutely. And I'd make the point. Why would a female refugee who's fleeing, you know, a part of the world where rape was a weapon of war? why would they express solidarity with many of the male illegal migrants entering on the English South Coast just because they're a refugee? There's no reason. And actually, they may feel even more sensitive to that as well, because they would have felt that,

listen, I fled very direct forms, direct threats of persecution and violence, and sexual violence in my homeland. And this is why I was granted refugee status in the UK. why would they express solidarity with illegal migrants on the English South Coast? There's no reason for them to. In fact, they may be more sensitive to that. So I think that with Labor more generally, and I've made no secret that I still traditionally I associate myself with the Labour Party.

I'm from a Labour voting town, traditionally Labour voting town in Luton. One of the first things I did when I finally entered the world of work was join the trade union. But I think that you make such a good point about workers' rights, because when people think about workers' rights, for some reason, they think that's a formal xenophobia. But British workers are of different races, ethnicities and faiths. We have a very multi-ethnic, multi-faith workforce now. So I think that what I'd like to see is, of course,

you need a dynamic immigration system which addresses urgent shortages in the labour market. But I think that what would be quite an attractive and electorally popular policy is investing more in the domestic workforce, you know, in sort of improving skills, the provision of high-quality apprenticeships in working-class communities. And that's not only going to benefit white British people,

they'll benefit a variety of people. And then over time, the country can wean itself off immigration dependency, especially in sectors such as health and social care. Ricky, it's great to have you on the show. The book is called Beyond Grievance. Make sure to get it. We're going to head over to locals for your questions in a second. But before we do, we always end with the same question,

which is, what's the one thing we're not talking about that we really should be? I think the one thing we're not talking about as much as well. should is prejudiced attitudes within minority communities. Well, we just did an hour of that. One thing we didn't touch upon was that, I didn't talk specifically about anti-Semitism, which you know that actually,

when you're looking at British Muslim and British black communities, levels of anti-Semitism and belief in anti-Semitic conspiracy theory is actually higher than the general population. And I think that's something that Labor, especially with its recent record, especially under Jeremy Corbyn, along with the fact that it does commanding, a high level of, you know, public support

among British Muslim and British black communities more generally, it's something that they may well have to face up to at some point. I think you've been very unfair, because Diane Abbott's been very strong on this. No, but he always makes me laugh when these, like, left liberal newspapers write these outraged articles about rising levels of antiseptoms. Why don't you do a little digging and find out where it's coming from?

Yeah. Anyway, Rakeeb, thank you so much for coming on. Head on over to locals, where we continue the conversation. Why is ethnic diversity seen as a cause for problems in Africa and the Middle East, but a strength where diversities are strength in the West?