Andy Burnham has a historic opportunity to shift the national mood on racism, the chair of Operation Black Vote (OBV) has said, as the incoming prime minister prepares to take office.
In an interview marking the 30th anniversary of the influential nonpartisan civil rights organisation, David Weaver, the chair of OBV, said Burnham must seize the chance to change a UK political culture where race and migration discourse is used to deflect from class inequalities and ineffective leadership.
Burnham's Prospectus for Power
Burnham, the former Greater Manchester mayor, will become prime minister on Monday, after being confirmed as the new Labour leader on Friday. His prospectus for power – including devolution, reindustrialisation, technical education and a more economically interventionist state – promises to address class and regional inequalities.
Weaver said: “The conversations [Burnham] is having about class, inequality and listening to communities – they’re often not about race, but they’re beneficial. Not simply because they have the potential to help Black communities, but because they have the potential to make white working-class communities more secure. What he does now is critical: a society can’t thrive if it’s divided.”
Race Specificity Cannot Be Ignored
Nonetheless, Weaver said Burnham could not ignore “the specificity of race” when ethnonationalist rhetoric, ethnic disparities and race riots meant Black and Asian Britons were discussing the prospect of having to leave the UK “at levels unseen since the 70s”.
He urged Burnham to grant legal aid to Windrush scandal survivors and overhaul the underperforming compensation scheme by removing it from Home Office control and expediting payments. Weaver also called for Burnham to restore the Labour whip to the pioneering Black MP Diane Abbott, whose “appalling” treatment was consistently cited to OBV by Black voters.
Pessimism Among Black and Asian Britons
Weaver noted that Burnham was assuming office when pessimism among Black and Asian Britons about their future in the UK was at its lowest since Enoch Powell’s “rivers of blood” speech. He said: “We do have hope that there will be equity, but when you look at the things being said now, even in parliament, it makes what Enoch Powell said look like a nursery rhyme. Black people are seeing their British identity questioned. They are confused, despondent and pessimistic about their future in this country and as a response to the normalisation of racism, they are speaking about ancestry, the diaspora, more than ever. People will take trips, if they’re fortunate enough, to the Caribbean or Africa or India, Pakistan, and think – is there more hope for me here?”
In March, Hope Not Hate research revealed 54% of members of Reform UK, who have led polls for a year, thought non-white British citizens born abroad should be forcibly removed or encouraged to leave; while one in five (22%) supported it for non-white citizens whose parents were born in the UK.
In December the thinktank IPPR’s research revealed 71% of Reform voters thought British ancestry was a prerequisite for someone to be truly British; while more than a third said they would be prouder of Britain if there were fewer people from minority ethnic backgrounds in a decade’s time.
Windrush Scandal and Remigration Rhetoric
The Conservative MP Katie Lam has said legal migrants should “go home”; while Rupert Lowe, the leader of the hard-right Restore Britain party, said “millions must go”. For Black Britons, the rhetoric is reminiscent of the postwar far right demanding “repatriation”.
Weaver said the reality of the Windrush scandal – in which mainly Black Britons were stripped of citizenship rights over decades and deported, largely to the Caribbean and Africa – heightened fears. He said: “If we don’t take the clues from Windrush, incorporate that into our thinking about what is being said about remigration, and not see the links, then that’s our failing – and a political failing, morally and ethically.”
But he added that “leaving Britain in the thousands is not the answer” and that “Black people must reserve the right to live and be born in the UK with equity”, just as white Britons felt comfortable migrating worldwide.
OBV's 30th Anniversary and Localism Focus
Since 1996, OBV has supported and mentored thousands of people into public life – MPs, councillors, school governors, magistrates and NHS board members – helping make the UK a global leader in diversity in political representation, as well as encouraging people to use their vote.
In recent years, OBV has increasingly focused on localism, including community organising and citizen assemblies. Roundtable events, lecture series and alumni reunions are planned for the 30th anniversary year.
Weaver said OBV had been developing coalition-building strategies to “form allegiances” with white working-class communities who were also fighting for representation and decision-making power, and wanted to have “big conversations” across divides, including with rightwing activists.
He said it would be irresponsible for OBV not to engage with Reform when it had an “electoral mandate”. Weaver said: “When we’re not in the room, white working-class people aren’t in the room either – and they’re being stigmatised too. How do we have big conversations about what we do have in common?”
He continued: “But for politicians, talking about race has become a way of avoiding issues relating to class, and talking about class has become a way of avoiding issues relating to race. In an ideal world, we won’t be talking about race for ever – we’ll have a society based on humanity.”
