Race chief: UK becoming ghettoised
The problems of racial segregation in the UK are getting worse, Britain’s race chief believes.
Chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality Trevor Phillips will use a speech this week to talk of the racial and religious ghettos that have been revealed in the aftermath of the London bombings.
“We are sleepwalking our way to segregation. We are becoming strangers to each other and leaving communities to be marooned outside the mainstream,” he will say on Thursday.
He will outline his proposals to encourage more integration while addressing the Manchester Council for Community Relations. They will include plans to force schools with a white majority to accept more pupils from different ethnic backgrounds.
Using the recent example of New Orleans, where evidence of a polarised society came to light under the extreme conditions following Hurricane Katrina, Mr Phillips will claim that Britain is “becoming more divided by race and religion” in the same way.
But he has been criticised for exaggerating the situation.
Simon Hughes, the Liberal Democrat president told Sky News that the situation in the UK is improving, with many communities becoming more integrated with more mixed race relationships and families.
“It is not as bad as Trevor Phillips implies,” Mr Hughes said.
Muslim News editor Ahmed Versi told BBC Radio Five Live that the UK’s problem was the gaping difference between rich and poor and not just racial segregation.
