Of all the most pointless organisations in history, the Soviet Union’s Central Election Commission must be amongst the funniest. In the run-up to election day, CEC would be tasked with the important job of formally approving candidates. Fortunately for them, the Communist Party was happy to take on most of the work. On election day, the Commission would ensure that all processes were properly followed, dutifully noting down the names of any dissenters or abstainers. And, in the wake of the election, the CEC would rigorously audit the conduct of the election, invariably concluding that each poll was an unrivalled triumph of Soviet democracy.
It was striking to read the Home Affairs Committee’s recent report into the Southport riots, which adopted much the same tone. The report condemned fears about two-tier policing as “disgraceful”, denying outright the notion that officers were more heavy-handed when responding to right-wing protests. This will raise eyebrows for anybody who can remember the summer of 2020, when Black Lives Matter protests turned violent in cities across the UK, following the death of George Floyd. Often, the police stood by and watched the disorder — a far cry from their response to post-Southport rioting.
Really, why would anybody take this report seriously?
More than 1,800 people have been arrested since the rioting broke out last July, following the murder of three young girls by Axel Rudakubana. Many of those arrested have been slapped with long sentences for social media posts — including Lucy Connolly, the wife of a Conservative councillor who has been jailed for 31 months. By way of comparison, four of the men involved in the rape gangs in Telford received sentences of 30 months, when they were convicted back in 2013. Mohammed Islam Choudhrey, Mohammed Younis, Mahroof Khan, and Tanveer Ahmed were all found guilty of having sex with children, or pimping out children for sex. Connolly received a longer sentence than any of these men—- but remember, “two-tier policing” is just a far-right conspiracy theory.
Really, why would anybody take this report seriously? In true Eastern Bloc style, it was produced by a committee composed mostly of Labour MPs, who were charged with auditing the Labour Government’s response to the riots. What chance did we really have of an honest assessment?
Some of the individual members of the committee will also raise eyebrows. Shaun Davies, MP for Telford, was the leader of Telford Council from 2016 until 2024. In 2016, he rejected an inquiry into the Pakistani rape gangs, which abused over 1,000 children in the town. In his capacity as council leader, Davies told the Home Secretary that “we do not feel at this time that a further inquiry is necessary”. That’s despite the fact that, when the Telford Inquiry was published in 2022, it quoted police officers who said that “there was a nervousness about race…bordering on a reluctance to investigate crimes committed by […] the Asian community.” Davies doesn’t seem to have taken two-tier policing seriously then. Why would he take it seriously now?
Then there’s Bell Ribeiro-Addy, MP for Clapham and Brixton. In 2021, she argued that police had “historic problems … with Black, Asian, and minority ethnic communities.” She has been a vocal opponent of giving police “stop and search” powers, and has argued that the police are “institutionally racist”. Against that backdrop, why would we take her seriously on the issue of two-tier policing? Under what circumstances would she concede that the police could be biased against right-wing groups, or Britain’s white majority? Somehow, I struggle to imagine it.
As Robert Jenrick has highlighted so effectively, in reality, two-tier treatment is rife in modern Britain. Last month, the Sentencing Council announced plans to introduce new sentencing guidelines, which would have encouraged judges to consider softer sentences for ethnic minorities. Until a frantic eleventh-hour walkback, these new guidelines would have officially codified a policy of two-tier treatment. Unfortunately, in practice, two-tier sentencing has been going on for some time — in 2015, a judge in Leeds ruled that Asian victims of child abuse suffer more than White victims, meaning that those who abuse Asian children should be punished more harshly. Judge Sally Cahill argued that the “shame” culture in many Asian communities makes the abuse of an Asian child more severe than the abuse of a White child.
In the same vein, the British state has increasingly adopted a two-tier approach to hiring, with quotas and lower standards for particular minority groups. In just the last few weeks, the Welsh Government has revealed that it will pay ethnic minority teachers £5,000 more than their white counterparts, while West Yorkshire Police has delayed white British candidates from joining the force, in hopes of attracting more ethnic minority candidates.
The frustration with Britain’s two-tier state isn’t going away, whether the political class likes it or not. For many Britons, this simple idea neatly summarises their personal experiences and perceptions. In hiring, in policing, and in sentencing, Britain is a two-tier country, which offers preferential treatment to some ethnic minorities at the expense of the majority. MPs who refuse to accept this are either ideologically motivated, or ignorant of reality. It isn’t clear to me which of these two options is worse.
The real absurdity of the whole two-tier debacle is that the majority of British people ask for very little from their Government. In many countries around the world, concerns about special treatment for minorities often turn into demands for preferential treatment for the majority — just look at the Hindu nationalist backlash to Muslims in India.
But despite the fact that vocal minority groups continue to demand special treatment, the majority of British people have asked for no such special treatment. Their demands are simple — a legal system which enforces the law consistently, a government which hires people on the basis of merit, a police force which addresses threats according to their severity, and a state which allows people to voice their opinions, however uncomfortable. These are incredibly moderate requests, given the circumstances — it is plainly absurd to treat such moderate ideas as markers of “far-right radicalism”.
Yet if MPs refuse to acknowledge the legitimacy of these concerns, they should not be surprised when more extreme demands begin to emerge. The events of last summer prove that many ordinary Britons are fed up with the status quo; being honest about the problem would go a long way towards addressing this frustration. Remarkably, many MPs seem unable to do even this. Like those old Soviet bureaucrats, they will undoubtedly be swept away in the years to come.
