Race Riots in England

by Ray Honeyford

Some years ago I became the head teacher of a multi-racial school in the northern city of Bradford. At that time—1980—the school had 49 percent of children from the ethnic minorities. When I left six years later 93 percent of the pupils were from ethnic minority families—overwhelmingly children of Pakistani/Muslim background. In other words the school was what is generally described as a ghetto school, a situation where Asian children scarcely saw a white child. Recently there were very serious riots in the area in which my school is situated. These riots were led by young Asian thugs who fire-bombed cars, smashed windows, looted shops and savagely attacked police attempting to preserve the peace. Shortly before this there were also riots in two other northern towns, Burnley and Oldham. In Oldham the far right British National Party (BNP) obtained no less than sixteen percent of the vote.

What factors have created these immensely worrying developments? Segregated schools and housing have meant that cross-racial friendships in childhood, the key to good race relations, have become increasingly rare. White flight also has tended to emphasise racial separation. The tendency for Muslims to create large families has, too, generated a lack of racial and cultural balance in the area. The comprehensive principle has meant the virtual abolition of the selective grammar school, so that not even the brightest children from all ethnic groups can mix together. The language issue has also served to emphasise separation rather than racial integration: the local authority for many years has issued official forms and notices in non-English languages.

This has undermined the incentive to learn English. Since there are probably as many as a hundred or so language groups in Bradford, only a small proportion of these languages can be favoured, with the result that those whose languages are not so favoured are bound to feel resentful. Such a policy traps Asian folk predominantly mothers, of course—in a sort of linguistic and cultural ghetto. Another consequence is that a high proportion of Asian children start school with no knowledge of English, a serious educational disadvantage. All these things have conspired to produce alienated Asian youth.

But perhaps the most significant educational background to the riots has been the attempt by the Local Education Authority (LEA) to impose on the schools what is known as multi-cultural education (MCE). This is an intellectually incoherent, politically correct, and totally impracticable curriculum theory. What it means is this: schools are supposed to stress the pupils’ foreign background and culture, whilst de-emphasising British culture. Children and teachers are supposed to be constantly concerned about racial matters. Notices are to be in non-English languages—my former school now has an Urdu name. There is ritual slaughter in the school meals service; and pupils are, in defiance of the law, permitted to visit their parents’ home land in term time, a privilege denied to white pupils. If you are as a pupil being regularly reminded that your first cultural loyalty is to a nation thousands of miles away, rather than to the place into which your parents have chosen for you to be born—if this is what is happening, is it any wonder that at least some young Asians grow up not knowing where they belong? Who feel confused about their identity? And who may well feel angry, perhaps very angry, towards a system of education which has failed to fit you for life in this country?

If we are to learn the lesson of these appalling riots, then we must insist that schools teach a broadly-based British curriculum, so that the pupils grow up with the necessary skills and self confidence to make their way in this country. We must rid all our schools of the MCE nonsense which has done so much damage to young people from the ethnic minorities.

In a more general sense we need, as a nation, to get rid of the whole race relations industry. We do not need race laws in this country. Britain is not apartheid South Africa. We do not need the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE)—all British citizens are completely equal in terms of civil rights and opportunities. We do not need local Race Equality Councils (REC). And we emphatically do not require the myriad anti-racist groups and lobbies which constantly insult white people by claiming that Britain is a country rotted with endemic racism.

The whole race relations apparatus is based on self-interest and ideological opportunism. It poisons the air, and creates resentment in decent, tolerant people, whilst providing the racial extremists with ammunition.

We need a complete re-think about the whole business of race relations in this country. Without that we may well experience more race riots.