Are we heading for segregation, New Orleans style? Nothing of the kind

Only on Friday, I commented to Mrs Howe that Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, might be in some way indisposed. After all, he had been out of the headlines right through the 7/7

debacle and for some time thereafter. I added that this was rather unusual.

By Sunday, T Phil was back, fretting and fussing about the state of race relations in this sceptred isle. He raises the alarm that we are "sleepwalking" into a New Orleans-style segregation. He wades through a sea of statistics to prove that we are living in "a racial nightmare" where some districts are becoming "fully fledged ghettos - literal black holes" where people fear to go. He concludes that for us people of dark skins, "When the hurricane hits - and it could be a recession rather than a natural disaster, for example - those (segregated) communities are set up for destruction."

All of this is simply a rehash of what Phillips has been saying since he became chairman of the CRE: the bashing of multiculturalism; the clarion call for integration; the abuse of our immigrant communities - that we do not subscribe to democracy, freedom of speech and fair play, which are all quintessentially British values. I have replied to most of these in past columns, but this is the first time that Phillips has resorted to the apocalyptic. Not quite rivers of blood, but certainly thunder, lightning and huge waves will sweep us into extinction a la New Orleans.

Let's deal with this New Orleans comparison. The first African slaves entered the United States in 1619 and there followed 400 years of ebb and flow in the struggle for racial equality. Segregation was never voluntary but imposed brutally, and thousands of black people died in the cause of liberation.

Nothing of the kind obtains in the United Kingdom. We have been here, in numbers enough to make a permanent economic impact, for a mere 50 years, free to live wherever we want to, to participate in parliamentary politics, to drink and eat whatever we choose, to believe in the Almighty and associate gods. The much-touted British values of democracy, free speech and fair play are as much ours as they are the indigenous population's.

Oona King's demise is ample testimony of our ease with democracy; so, too, the election to parliament of several blacks and Asians. And what better demonstration of fair play than when almost the entire Muslim population rejected the suicide bombers who emerged from their communities, or the parents of the bombers offered to share their grief with the victims?

There are hurdles in our way from within our communities and without; we may stumble and fall as we attempt to transcend them, but the struggle continues. Are we heading for a New Orleans-type situation? Trevor Phillips is having a laugh.

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