Tackling Racism: Britain in Europe

Abstract

Why should it matter to us in Britain, what is happening in the rest of Europe? The term itself, ‘the rest of Europe’ points towards an answer. You will usually hear people nowadays talking about ‘Britain and Europe’ or ‘going to Europe’ from this country, as though we were a separate entity. On the contrary, we have always been geographically, culturally and politically part of Europe: nowadays we are in some respects legally bound to other parts of the continent. Race relations are not left out of this embrace. The illusion that we are separate has been fostered by a xenophobic tendency in British journalism and politics over at least the last twenty-five years, but it is a myth.