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Inequality in the north of England is about far more than race

<span>Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images</span>
Photograph: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

Obsession with the “white working class” distorts the picture of inequality in the north of England and warps policy. So says a new Runnymede Trust report, Class, Race and Inequality in Northern Towns. The authors call for notions of the working class to be “deracialised” and say greater attention should be given to tackling racial and ethnic inequalities.

The insistence that the working class is more than just white is welcome. But we should beware that a stress on diversity can distort our perceptions, too. The report points to racial disparities in education, employment and home ownership. The reasons for this are, however, likely to be complex.

Take educational attainment. The data shows that in Kirklees, West Yorkshire, white pupils do better than black pupils (63% attaining GCSE A*-C grades in English and maths compared with 51%), but in Middlesbrough the situation is reversed (67% of black pupils compared with 53% of white ones).

A 2016 Sutton Trust report showed that white working-class boys “achieve the lowest grades at GCSE of any main ethnic group”. The fixation of policymakers with ethnic categories has often blinded them to issues of class, including within minority groups.

Similarly with home ownership. In the north-east, there is an 18% gap in ownership rates between white British and other groups; elsewhere in the north, that figure stretches to 22%. Again, this may be as much a product of class as it is of race. Racism remains a problem in Britain and blights the lives of many from minority backgrounds. But inequality is a complex phenomenon and racial categories may not be the best way of understanding what drives it. In deracialising our image of the working class, we should be careful not to reracialise it through the ways in which we talk of diversity and ethnic differences.