‘sThe Tory government’s policy are unfair on black, Asian and minority ethnic communities. In Luna Willaims words, Brexit is complicating the matter.
In May, the UN sent a Special Rapporteur to investigate the issue. Luna’s charge was to study the existence of racism, racial discrimination xenophobia and other forms of intolerance in the UK. To do this, she interviewed reps of political, private and public background. These groups included politicians, human rights councils and community groups across UK’s sectors, communities and structures.
The UN Human Rights Council explored her discoveries releasing a summary of her report. The report, implicated Brexit in encouraging social and economic hostilities with their immigration policies.
Theresa May was Home Secretary when the policy was advanced . The policy centered on making the UK frosty and difficult for “illegal migrants” they would have no choice but to leave voluntarily.
Landlords, employers and health-care providers were encouraged to refuse services of those they felt were illegal migrants. This practice fuelled racial profiling and mass discrimination of both British-born and migrant BAME folks and their families.
The hostile policy was officially denounced after last summer’s Windrush Scandal of 2018.
The scandal which rocked the UK, saw many of the Windrush-generation British citizens wrongly detained and deported by the Home office. The sad part is that many of these folks have been working in the UK all their life.
Even after the termination of the hostile policy, racial and religious discrimination and inequalities continued in various forms. Its residue was visible in education, healthcare and public life. To be honest, attitudes have been affected by the policies. Brexit will have to shoulder the blame for increased inequalities, discrimination and xenophobia in UK communities.
A look into the report showed increase in hate crimes in England and Whales following the Brexit referendum. Racially and religiously motivated crimes were on the high in subsequent years. Not only that, austerity measures have been tough on BAME communities. This has created inequalities for BAME children, youth and women in particular.
The cost of Brexit also contributed to these inequalities. Hence, what the policy did was to establish these hostilities in the attitude of UK households and businesses.
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