Reader TTS

By any measure, Britain is one of the least racist countries on the planet. Polls on racism consistently show the UK at or near the bottom of the table in Europe. Yet Left-wing critics blame

the decision by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex to decamp to North America on racist attacks by the British media on Meghan Markle. Last week, the mixed-race Labour politician Clive Lewis

said: “If you look at the racism Meghan Markle has experienced in the British media, then I can understand why… it can’t be easy being a royal.” The children’s writer Philip Pullman tweeted:

“Of course Meghan Markle is attacked by the British press because she’s black… What a foul country this is.” Perhaps Sir Philip (who is white) identifies with the Duchess because this “foul

country” has made them both very famous, very privileged and very rich. Yesterday, Britain’s first non-white Home Secretary hit back. Priti Patel, whose family is Ugandan Asian, dismissed

the notion that Meghan has been hounded out of Britain by a racist mob. Based on her own experience, she did not, she said, “believe there’s racism at all. I think we live in a great

country, a great society, full of opportunity, where people of any background can get on in life.” She had not seen any racism in the media, she said. As a nation, we are in danger of

turning the latest Royal crisis into a fake news story about a young couple victimised by a snobbish and prejudiced British establishment. It fits too many stereotypes, especially in

America, where both the Abdication and the Diana crises are still often seen in that light. Even the revelation that the Duke and Duchess of Windsor were Nazi sympathisers, which was

highlighted for a global audience in “The Crown”, has left the archetypal narrative intact. We can be sure that Priti Patel’s riposte will receive infinitesimal coverage compared to the

innumerable commentators, even for such organs as the _New York Times_, which will echo the evidence-free claim that the story is all about Meghan’s race. The grip that identity politics now

has, especially in the US, makes it impossible for any other interpretation of the facts to gain traction. And yet it is hard to see how the Queen could have been more accommodating to her

grandson and his wife than she has been. The much-heralded Sandringham “summit”, which the Duchess did not deign to attend but in which she participated by phone, resulted in a statement

that gave the couple everything they could reasonably have expected. The Queen was “entirely supportive” of their decision to move abroad and give up life as working royals. “Harry and

Meghan” remain “a valued part of my family”. This episode illustrates how public life is now increasingly seen through the distorting lens of identity politics. To take another example:

Emily Thornberry, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, is reported to have reached the next round of the Labour leadership contest because Left-wing MPs decided that the race should be “more

diverse”. Really? Do the requirements of diversity dictate that the last five candidates should include a white middle-class, middle-aged barrister who is married to a High Court judge, Sir

Christopher Nugee? Does the Labour Party constitution prescribe that at least one candidate must reside in Islington, as Jeremy Corbyn also does? Thornberry tweeted that “four strong women”

would now contest the leadership — but they, like the only remaining man (Sir Keir Starmer), are all white. Diversity seems to have entered Lewis Carroll’s Looking-Glass world: “‘When I use

a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’” As David Herman argued here in TheArticle yesterday, the Labour

candidates have yet to address the real elephant in the room: anti-Semitism. A poll of anti-Semitism in Europe for the Anti-Defamation League last November found that one in four Europeans

holds strongly anti-Semitic views, with Muslims three times more likely to do so. Although Britain scored lower than any other large country except France, a third of respondents still

agreed that Jews were “far more loyal to Israel” than to Britain. This suggests that there is a large pool of anti-Semitism in which the far-Left have been fishing. All five Labour

leadership candidates campaigned to put Corbyn into Downing Street. Is anti-Semitism now the acceptable face of racism in Britain?