UN report blames politicians, public figures and media for fuelling hate speech in UK

UK politicians, public figures and media outlets are fuelling racial hatred, a new United Nations (UN) report has warned.

CERD criticised the persistence of hate crimes, hate speech and xenophobic incidents on various platforms and by politicians and public figures across the UK.

In the wake of recent race riots which swept the UK, The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) was “concerned about recurring racist acts and violence against ethnic and ethno-religious minorities, migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers by extremist far-right and white supremacist individuals and groups”.

Following the murder of three children in Southport last month, racist rioting broke out around the country with Muslim, Asian and Black people targeted in violence for a number of days.

The violence, denounced as “far-right thuggery” by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, was sparked by false claims about the identity of a suspect being a migrant of Muslim faith.

The new Labour government is being urged to implement “comprehensive measures” to curb racist hate speech and xenophobic rhetoric including thorough investigations and strict penalties for racist hate crimes, plus effective remedies for the victims and their families.

This comes as the Equality and Human Rights Commission, Britain’s equalities watchdog, published a report into racial disparities across the country which points out serious inequalities in areas including criminal justice, employment, housing and mental health

The watchdog submitted these findings to the UN’s Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and demanded that ministers tackle racial disparities experienced by ethnic minority communities.

CERD published findings on Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, the United Kingdom and Venezuela after reviewing the seven countries in its latest session.

The committee monitors the extent to which countries are eliminating all forms of racial discrimination, as per a UN treaty they all signed.

Baroness Kishwer Falkner, chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission said: “Everyone should enjoy their human rights, regardless of their race.

“We urge the UK and Welsh governments to closely look at our report and action our recommendations, to support the achievement of racial equality in Britain.”

The UN committee also expressed concern about the disproportionate impact of police stop-and-search practices, including strip searches, on ethnic minorities, especially children.

This comes as new data recently revealed that Black children remain four times as likely to be strip-searched across England and Wales, compared to national population figures.

The police’s use of excessive and deadly force was also referenced in the report, as well as a “lack of accountability” and “inadequate support for victims’ families”, all of which disproportionately affect Black people and other ethnic minorities, the committee concluded.

It further highlighted concerns about institutional racism within policing and the criminal justice system.

Black people comprise 13 per cent of the prison population within the UK which is over three times their proportion of the national population.

Black children made up 26 per cent of the youth custody population in 2023 compared to just 6 per cent of the general population aged 10 to 17, as indicated by the government’s own youth justice statistics.

Moreover, Black people are stopped, searched and arrested by police at higher rates than their white counterparts.

The UN Committee is calling on the UK government to set up an independent complaint mechanism to investigate allegations of racial profiling, stop-and-search practices, strip searches, and excessive use of force by police.

The government has been approached for comment.