Kemi Badenoch: the curriculum does not need ‘decolonising’

When the government published a report last year by the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities (CRED) into racism in the UK, it was the subject of controversy. The report concluded the UK does not have a systemic problem with racism (while accepting there are issues), and a number of charities dubbed it ‘deeply troubling’. A year later and the government finally set out its response to the report and how it intends to deal with the inequalities highlighted in it. 

Taking its founding principles from the original report, it essentially accepts the chair Tony Sewell’s logic that the different outcomes for different minority groups means that it is the wrong approach to attribute every problem to racism. Announcing the findings of the report – titled ‘Inclusive Britain’ – the minister leading the charge on the issue, Kemi Badenoch, spoke of some of the criticism the report received.

She said that she had mistakenly thought that selecting independent commissioners from different ethnicities would dilute the hostile response to the commission for deviating from the progressive orthodoxy. This