“White British” — the two words toxifying politics | Serious social issues, perceived and real, will not be fixed by supercharging racial grievance

> Mainstream political discourse has found two words seeping in: “white British”. The term is increasingly used to create a narrative of victimhood, a crowding out of the UK’s native population. The stories are always the same: the white British are becoming a minority in their own country; they face discrimination in recruitment; British culture and history are devalued.

> There are real issues to address. The scandal of child grooming gangs; mass immigration creating racial ghettos so siloed that they present an obstacle to integration; an asymmetric multiculturalism creates at least the perception of a two-tier society. But why the focus on the blunt phrase “white British”?

> When Robert Jenrick, a man widely seen (not least by himself) as the next Conservative leader, talks repeatedly of the decline of the “white British” population in some towns and says the UK is “already an island of strangers”, his words do not distinguish between non-whites. Apparently it would be just as problematic if Rishi Sunak or Kemi Badenoch moved in.

> There is no gradation, no separation of well-integrated from not. Third-generation Black Britons whose Windrush predecessors answered the call to fill labour shortages are on the wrong side of this binary ledger. So, too, politicians like Priti Patel or Sadiq Khan, the actor Ben Kingsley or the journalist Mishal Husain, along with many law-abiding citizens of insufficient pallor.

> Neil O’Brien, a thoughtful Conservative frontbencher, uses the white British phrase for his data blog because of the ethnic categories in the census. But O’Brien’s posts also sound the alarm with headings such as “mass migration and breakneck social change”. Other Tories also deploy the term. Nigel Farage is often more careful but he too talks of “minority white” cities.

> Whatever the motives, base or benign, this use of “white British” in political discourse reduces discussion to skin colour and ignores integration or contribution. White British is the only measure of virtue. One prominent rightwing blogger rails that by the end of the century the share of white British could be just 33 per cent (down from nearly 75 per cent in England and Wales in the 2021 census) and that a majority will not have a British lineage beyond one or two generations.

> Beyond the mainstream parties, Britain’s new white warriors show little restraint in the search for grievance. Anti-immigrant violence is excused or legitimised by rightwing commentators. Openly anti-Muslim sentiment is becoming commonplace. The crimes of non-whites are relentlessly highlighted and the atrocities of others skipped over. When a man drove into a crowd of Liverpool fans, social media showed people readying for a new fight. After police revealed he was white (itself a shocking but shortsighted move to head off violence), interest subsided.

> The only harmonious future lies in a well-integrated, multi-ethnic society that all see as fair. Many would argue that, largely, Britain is already that society. One thing is clear, though. There are serious issues, visceral and complex, perceived and real. But they will not be fixed by supercharging white grievance with lazy dichotomies around skin colour that create two tiers of citizens, a true race and “plastic Brits”. Some issues cannot be reduced to white and not white.