Abstract
The reaction to large-scale migration to Britain from the Commonwealth in the aftermath of World War Two led to the need to legislate against discrimination and racism. The chapter describes the strengths and weaknesses of successive laws until 2010 when the Equality Act incorporated and enlarged on all previous laws. Thereafter, the focus of government action was legislating on, and combating, hate crime as a consequence of the lessons learned from the Macpherson Inquiry into the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence. These changes radically altered the response of the criminal justice system to racism and hate crime.
Government and International Affairs Director at the Community Security Trust and UK Member of the Council of Europe’s Commission against Racism and Intolerance.
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- 1.
The numbers of Commonwealth citizens entering Britain were as follows: 132,000 between 1955 and 1957; 58,000 in 1960; 136,000 in 1961. Rose, J B, (1969), Colour and Citizenship: A Report on British Race Relations, Oxford University Press, London.
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Whine, M. (2017). Latest Developments in Combating Racism in the UK. In: Elósegui, M., Hermida, C. (eds) Racial Justice, Policies and Courts' Legal Reasoning in Europe. Ius Gentium: Comparative Perspectives on Law and Justice, vol 60. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-53580-7_8
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