The government knows exactly what it’s doing by focusing on white working-class boys instead of anti-black racism

Instead of eulogising Winston Churchill, or hiring people to deny structural inequalities for him, the prime minister should come up with clear policy that seeks to make the radical changes we need

In recent weeks, the central messages of the Black Lives Matter movement have been hijacked in mainstream media and political discourse. We're discussing issues that do nothing to address the inequalities that black people have been highlighting; debates have raged following the removal of statues of slave traders and the cancellation of racially offensive television shows; MPs have expressed their indifference towards the global push against anti-blackness.

I welcome discussions about what should and should not occupy our public spaces – black Britons should not have to live their lives under the gaze of those who enslaved their ancestors – but the focus on individual television shows and statues risks embroiling the Black Lives Matter movement in an unnecessary "culture war", diverting attention away from their central aim: the liberation of black lives through the dismantling of oppressive power structures.

The UK government’s response to Black Lives Matter movement has been laughable. Instead of engaging with these issues in sincere ways, it has displayed a distinct lack of sensitivity and urgency.

Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, and his belief that the Black Lives Matter movement is simply born of "restlessness", or that taking a knee in support of it, is akin to "subjugation", or indeed that the act itself originates from Game of Thrones is just one, thoroughly disappointing example.

Boris Johnson's choice to order yet another commission on racial inequality – the announcement of which was buried in a piece for The Telegraph about Winston Churchill and statues, laying bare the prime minister’s priorities – is another. And that's without mentioning the many other public figures in the UK who have contributed to the deluge of insensitive reactions to this resurgence of anti-racist campaigning.

How many more commissions and inquiries are required before the government takes decisive action? From the Lammy Review, Race Disparity Audit, Baroness McGregor-Smith review and the Independent review of the Windrush Scandal to name a few, we have had so many now that they are beginning to lose meaning. In three years, there have been eight reviews looking at the impact of race or racial inequality – the government has created a culture of inquiries and inertia.

Previous reviews have provided a thorough overview of the racial inequalities that exist across various areas of British life. Why not act on those clear recommendations? Systemic racism is a matter of life and death; the government’s inaction appears to be an attempt to kick the issue into the long grass.

In what seems to be another cynical ploy to minimise anti-black racism, Johnson has also made clear his intentions for the commission to focus on the disadvantages faced by white working-class boys. While there is no denying the disadvantages white working-class boys face, centring them in an inquiry that was set up to look at the issues of racial inequality at a time when anti-black racism is on the global agenda, will only serve to muddy the waters and conflate the issues faced by the different marginalised groups. There's also the glaring issue of the fact that problems faced by the white working class have very little to do with race, and much more to do with class itself. Nevertheless, it's a common device often framed by politicians and sections of media as the result of increased immigration or diversity, in an attempt to pit groups against each other.

Moreover, the racialisation of the working-class as exclusively white eliminates the experiences of other ethnic minority groups. This was evident during the media coverage and political debates in the lead up to the 2016 EU Referendum where there was a renewed focus on how one part of a cross-section of groups who've been affected by a mixture of austerity, Brexit, the hostile environment and now lockdown, were "left behind". As the Runnymede Trust's "Who Cares About The Working Class?" paper suggests, "By presenting the white working class in ethnic terms, as yet another cultural minority in a (dysfunctional) ‘multicultural Britain’, commentators risk giving a cultural reading of inequality, focusing on the distinctive cultural values of disadvantaged groups, rather than looking at the bigger picture of how systematic inequality generates disadvantage."

Including white working boys in a review on racial inequality, therefore, makes absolutely no sense, as they are not discriminated against on the basis of their whiteness. Britain’s history, let us not forget, is intimately tied to white supremacy and the anti-black systems of oppression that exist today can be traced back centuries to Britain too. Remember, the money borrowed to compensate slave traders for the Slavery Abolition Act was only paid off by taxpayers in 2015.

Worse yet, this new commission will be headed by Munira Mirza, the director of the No 10 Policy Unit, who is sceptical about the existence of structural racism. It will also reportedly be overseen by Kemi Badenoch, who, this month, also dismissed the extent of racism in the UK. But structural racism is not, as Mirza has claimed in the past, “a perception more than a reality”; it has been evidenced by the various audits and inquiries on racial inequality in recent years and by the lived experiences of ethnic minorities in the UK.

Instead of writing articles eulogising Winston Churchill, the prime minister should come up with a clear policy plan that seeks to make the radical changes we need.

Those on the sharp end of systemic racism and state violence are not concerned with the cancellation of television shows or further inquiries that will at best tell us what we already know. What we really want is the systems of oppression undergirded and sustained by white supremacy to be dismantled. Our lives matter, it cannot be right that black people are still being killed just because of the colour of their skin. We are sick of platitudes and demand action so things can change.