Munira Mirza to lead race and inequality commission

For the race and inequality inquiry, PM appointed Manira Mirza to set up the team.

After the government announces to create a commission to examine “all aspects” of racial inequality, Johnson appointed Munira Mirza, the head of the No 10 policy unit to guide the work of the inquiry on race and ethnic disparities.

Dismay about Munira Mirza’s role

The choice of Mirza was criticized because she denied the existence of institutional racism and accused previous inquiries for fostering a “culture of grievance”. MPs and experts were frightened about the PM decision.

In fact David Lammy, the shadow justice secretary, stated that the role of Mirza “further undermines” Johnson’s race commission. No 10 advisor have been critical on his review on inequalities in the judicial system.

A spokeperson of the Institute of Race Relations thinktank manifested little confidence in the results: “Any enquiry into inequality has to acknowledge structural and systemic factors. Munira Mirza’s previous comments describe a ‘grievance culture’ within the anti-racist field and she has previously argued that institutional racism is ‘a perception more than a reality’.”

He added: “It is difficult to have any confidence in policy recommendations from someone who denies the existence of the very structures that produce the social inequalities experienced by black communities.”

The race and inequality commission aim

Nonetheless, the PM presented in an article about the debate of the removal of historical statues and an accuse towards protesters, also in television appearances thta evidenced the wish to stop “the sense of victimisation”. Johnson is trying to redirect the question raised by the mass protests after the killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis in a sense of contrast to statues’s issue, and his view through an improved commitment to talk up positive experiences about race.

In the past, Mirza was a supporter of of the Revolutionary Communist party, then for eight years she was Johnson’s deputy mayor for culture in London. No 10 advisor has been considered a voice out of the choir, polemizing about anti-racism and what she called “its culture of grievance”.