Dear IRR News subscriber, This week the IRR’s Jon Burnett, analyses Eric Pickles’ recent integration speech given at an event hosted by the think-tanks British Future and Policy Exchange. (Next week he will analyse British Futures’ new report on the state of the nation.) Lawyer Dave Renton assesses why race discrimination tribunals fail at the employment
Culture of disbelief? Why race discrimination claims fail in the Employment Tribunal
As the European Court partially vindicates employees’ rights to manifest their religion at work, and with coalition measures set to make access to justice more difficult for all employees, employment lawyer, historian and activist David Renton discusses the added difficulties for those bringing race discrimination claims. On 15 January, the European Court upheld the claim
The Met police and mental health
The Independent Commission on Mental Health and Policing is currently carrying out a consultation in the form of an online survey. The Commission was established in September 2012 by the Metropolitan police in response to the inquest verdict into the death of Sean Rigg in police custody. Sean Rigg died on the floor of Brixton
‘Integration, integration, integration’
Does Eric Pickles’ integration speech last week foretell an emphasis on a new patriotism? Communities secretary Eric Pickles gave his first speech on integration last week, at an event hosted by the think-tanks British Future and Policy Exchange. Arguing that language was the cornerstone of Conservative integration strategy, he vowed to tackle the ‘statist’ policies which,
The rise of Britain’s far right
A new history of the far Right shines a light on the culpability of centre-ground politics for fascist gains. Britain’s far Right is in pieces. The British National Party (BNP) is electorally dead; the English Defence League (EDL) has been fractured by infighting, its figureheads taking cheap potshots at one another while its leader, Tommy
IRR News 11-17 January 2013
Dear IRR News subscriber, In the latest issue of Race & Class, the IRR’s quarterly journal, one of the articles by Kevin Searle, examines the struggles in 1949 that West Indian workers put up against Irish and European co-residents in migrant workers hostels in Birmingham. Nicky Road, a regular contributor to IRR News, reviews two
Films explore risks to women
The Need to Know Campaign exposes global acts and practices that harm women. Animage Films produce animation films to raise awareness about harmful practices against women worldwide. With the collaboration and support of UK and international charities they have produced several film campaigns. The two most recent are Two Little Girls and A Dangerous Journey.
Through the generations
A new exhibition on the untold stories of Tamil migration includes interviews with the IRR’s A. Sivanandan. The exhibition is the culmination of a one-year project by Race On The Agenda (ROTA) and the Tamil Community Centre in Hounslow. The project: ‘Through the generations: untold stories of Tamil migration’ has collated the oral stories of
The 1949 Causeway Green ‘riots’ reassessed
Kevin Searle’s ‘“Mixing of the unmixables”: the 1949 Causeway Green “riots” in Birmingham’ examines a hitherto unknown landmark in British race relations which throws into question standard accounts of postwar immigration. Most popular accounts begin with the arrival of Jamaican immigrants on the Empire Windrush, and place the 1958 disturbances in Notting Hill and Nottingham
The Hague: refugees evicted from protest camp
Helen Hintjens, from the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) of Erasmus University Rotterdam, reports from The Hague on the violent eviction of a refugee protest camp. …we are not people to be pitied, who need to be given shelter. We are demonstrators, who want to get our political message across, by staying visible to