Today's post is written by our head of policy, Dr Omar Khan

Every ten years the Census provides us with multiple insights into the state of modern Britain. In today’s release of the 2011 Census, we find that the Black and minority ethnic (BME) population has reached nearly 8 million – roughly the population of Scotland and Wales combined.

Overall, the BME population is now 14.1% of the overall total in England and Wales, rising from 7.9% in 2001. This doesn’t include the significant ‘White Other’ population which is now 2.5 million, or 4.4% of the overall population. Much of this growth has been through immigration, and many will assume that the ‘White Other’ population is primarily Eastern European. However, this population also includes White French, White Australian, White Argentinian and White American people, which explains why this disparate ‘group’ is now some 12.6% of the population of London.

Combined with the 40% of the population that is Black and minority ethnic, a minority of London’s residents are now ‘White British’ (46%). While this is indeed a striking development, it masks an arguably more significant development – the greater dispersal of ethnic minorities across the UK. Contrary to much received wisdom, Britain is becoming less ‘segregated’ every year.

Today's post is written by Runnymede's director, Dr Rob Berkeley

In his speech filled with allusions to wartime blitz spirit, and calling for a ‘buccaneering, deal-making, hungry spirit’ to the CBI yesterday, David Cameron announced an end to ‘equality impact assessments’. An announcement that was so good it needed to be made twice. An announcement that was not all that it seems, on either occasion.

The PM has been keen to make a link between efforts to promote equality and sclerotic decision-making in government. The argument goes that having to consider the impact of policy decisions on marginalised groups is a key hold up in creating policy that will lead us out of double- (and soon to be triple-) dip recession to the sunlit uplands of economic growth. This is the reason why government has failed to introduce an industrial policy worth describing as such, why there will be no decision on airport capacity until after the next election, and why the eurozone is failing to recover. Perhaps that’s unfair and I’m falling into the trap of prime-ministerial hyperbole, but the more modest claims that equality impact assessments are to the detriment of effective and speedy policy-making are similarly lacking in evidence. Radical reforms to our schools, university funding, welfare benefits, criminal justice system, armed forces, NHS, energy, and immigration systems have hardly been stalled by decision-makers having to give due consideration to the impact of these decisions on marginalised groups. What Cameron seems to be suggesting by re-announcing this measure is that policy-makers are still spending taking too long to think about the potential impact of policy changes on marginalised people. Given the direction of education, welfare, employment and immigration reforms this hardly bears much scrutiny.

The news website Exaro has published a story regarding Operation Terminus - a new elite crime squad that targets foreign criminals in London. Runnymede is quoted as calling the initiative "worrying" and potentially alienating to ethnic minorities.

We are concerned that the headline and start of article may give the false impression we are against foreign criminals being targeted by the police. This is, of course, not the case. We are instead concerned with the overall approach of Operation Terminus rather than its specific aims.

Our Research and Policy Analyst Kam Gill clarifies Runnymede’s position and provides more detail on our concerns with Operation Terminus

The Metropolitan police have recently initiated an operation - dubbed Operation Terminus - which seeks to target foreign criminals for deportation. While few people, and certainly not Runnymede are likely object to criminals of whatever nationality being targeted by the police and prevented from committing more crime there are aspects of the approach which are problematic and are likely to be ineffective.

Firstly by focusing on "foreigners" rather than on "criminals" or on a specific crime there is a risk that the police will slide into the use of ethnic profiling - targeting specific people based not on intelligence that they may be involved in crime but based purely on the actual or perceived ethnicity -  a tactic which is illegal in the UK. Regardless of their ethnicity criminals should be caught, of course, but once caught they should also be entitled to due process and fair treatment under the law.

Runnymede’s director Rob Berkeley questions whether the government’s economic strategy is heading in the right direction and whether we can afford to wait to address racial inequalities. This article originally appeared in the Runnymede Bulletin.

As Rahm Emmanuel the former White House Chief of Staff and currently beleaguered Mayor of Chicago reminds us, in politics, ‘a crisis is a terrible thing to waste’. And a crisis is definitely what we are experiencing at the moment. One in five young people in the UK, Sweden, Poland, Italy and Ireland is unemployed (a rise in the UK from one in eight young people in 2007). In Spain and Greece the number of young people out of work has risen to nearly 50%.  The Spanish and Greek governments have been thrown into turmoil, with street protests regularly turning nasty and each policy turn scrutinised in the media to assess the impact of the budgetary cuts. For young people from minority ethnic backgrounds in the UK prospects for a job are worse than for those in Rhodes or Seville. Fifty-five percent of young men from Black Caribbean backgrounds who are seeking work, cannot find a secure job. The response from our politicians, media and civil society, however, is at best a dismissive shrug.

Despite activists’ efforts to raise the issue of disproportionate levels of unemployment for people from minority ethnic communities, many of our political leaders appear to be convinced that no response is the best response. Challenged in parliament on the need to address the scandalous levels of unemployment among people from some minority ethnic groups, the employment minister merely suggested that the government’s flagship Work Programme would be evaluated in 2014 to see whether it was having any impact on this group. Such a wait-and-see approach is little comfort to a young person on the dole.

Today's blog post was written by Runnymede intern Gilles Herail. It was previously published on the UKREN blog

The French Government has announced it will push for a change in citizenship law so that non EU citizens, also referred to as third-country nationals are granted the right to vote for local council elections. A three-fifths majority of the Congress is required to change the constitution. The ruling coalition (the Socialists and the Greens) will therefore need the full support of centrist MPs to enforce a measure that has been written in the manifesto of the Socialist Party for many years. If they fail to reach a consensus, the President will have to call a referendum and take the risk of opening a Pandora’s Box.

Opponents of the measure to grant third-country nationals the right to vote in local elections (led by the far-right Front National and backed by a significant proportion of the main centre-right party) have developed a two-fold argument. Firstly, this argument is based on their perceived inextricable link between nationality and political citizenship as one of the fundamental characteristics of the French Republic. Secondly, these parties also argue that granting foreign nationals the right to vote will trigger a rise of “communautarisme”, a loaded French concept describing a chaos in which ethnic or religious communities live separately from one another, setting their own rules and endangering national cohesion.

Today's blog post is written by Runnymede's Research and Policy Analyst Phil Mawhinney

Racism is very much alive in sport, despite it being one of the few remaining public spaces for anti-racism, and new forms of racism are emerging. So said Professor Ben Carrington at a Europe House discussion on racism in sport held last week, in partnership with Runnymede. So, is the debate actually progressing and how can we move forward?

Even football-phobes cannot have failed to notice the recent Euro 2012 tournament (won, predictably, by the pre-eminent Spanish side), and the many programmes and articles highlighting the racist abuse of players by fans. Add this to the recent high-profile cases of (alleged) abuse by players on other players – such as Luis Suarez being banned for abusing Patrice Evra, and John Terry being stripped of the England captaincy while under investigation for abusing Anton Ferdinand – and you can see why racism in sport has been so widely-discussed of late.

Former footballers Paul Elliot CBE and Paul Mortimer spoke at the event, giving affecting accounts of the abuse they received, including from their own fans and teammates. Many see footballers as huge egos, grossly overpaid for playing a kids’ game. Paul Elliot helpfully emphasized that the football pitch is the footballer’s workplace and everybody has the right to work in a place free from discrimination. Racism in sport is about rights.

Today's blog post is written by Kam Gill, research and policy analyst at Runnymede

The announcement on Monday that Rodney King had died aged 47 prompted much comment about the impact the King case had on both race relations and policing in the US. King became arguably the world’s most famous victim of police brutality after three of the officers filmed beating him on the sidewalk were acquitted by an all-white jury, with the fourth being released following a mistrial. The trial sparked widespread rioting across LA, during which more than 50 people were killed.

In the 20 years since the LA riots Rodney King developed a totemic status for those who suffered from police aggression, particularly in the US but also in the UK. Over the same period, policing in the UK has had its own race scandals, most notably the investigation into the death of Stephen Lawrence. Similar to the King Case, the Lawrence murder sparked an inquiry into policing in the UK which allowed Black and minority ethnic communities to air grievances that had festered for decades.

One of the most prominent issues coming to light was stop and search. The massive disparities in the use of this power prompted Lord Macpherson, who led the inquiry into the police response to Lawrence’s murder, to conclude that institutional racism was embedded within the Metropolitan police service. Much like the King case, the Lawrence inquiry was considered to have exposed the facade of post-racial or colour blind policing, allowing the ugly truth to be faced and dealt with.