In the past few weeks, Sadiq Khan has made a couple of interventions that show how hopelessly confused the Labour Party is on issues of race and diversity – and Ukip looms large in the background.
First up, a couple of weeks ago, Khan made a Labour’s pitch ethnic minority votes in a speech to Operation Black Vote. He said:
‘The fact is that if you are black or Asian in Britain today: you are significantly more likely to be unemployed. You will earn less and you will live a shorter life than your white neighbours.’
Invoking Policy Exchange’s recent ‘Portrait of Modern Britain’ report, he added:
‘Entire racial groups are significantly poorer, have lower educational achievements and worse life chances than their [white] neighbours’.
Leaving aside the strange claim that whole races are much worse off than any white people they may live next to, this sort of language seems somewhat…divisive.
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