For the former English professional footballer, see Trevor Phillips (footballer)

Trevor Phillips OBE (born in London, 31 December 1953) is a Black British Labour politician and former political journalist of Guyanese origins. After supporting multiculturalism for many years, Phillips is now one of its most outspoken mainstream critics. He expressed fears that multiculturalism could cause Britain to "sleepwalk towards segregation"^[1] and has argued for school selection to be amended to prevent segregation in British schools.

In 2006 he was appointed the head of a new organisation known as the Commission for Equalities and Human Rights, which will be an organisation promoting equality issues across the full raft of ethnic, gender, sexual-orientation, disability and other minority interests.^[2]

Early life

Phillips was born in London, living in Wood Green but went to secondary school in Georgetown, Guyana before returning to London to study chemistry at Imperial College London - saying his interest in the subject was prompted by living next to a gasometer as a child. At Imperial he became president of the students' union before his election as president of the National Union of Students in 1978 as a candidate for the Broad Left. He has had a varied career in both media and politics, working initially as a researcher for London Weekend Television (LWT), before being promoted to head of current affairs. He produced and presented The London Programme and has worked on projects for the BBC. With his brother, the crime writer Mike Phillips, he wrote Windrush: Irresistible Rise of Multi-racial Britain (1998, HarperCollins, ISBN 0-00-255909-9).

Political activity

Phillips was active in the voluntary sector, serving as chair of the Runnymede Trust, a think-tank promoting ethnic equality, from 1993 to 1998, and as a commissioner for a number of other charities. He also served as chair of the London Arts Board. His long-standing friendship with Peter Mandelson (who worked with Phillips at London Weekend Television and was best man at his wedding to Asha Bhownagary) brought him close to the New Labour project and he became friends with Tony Blair. Phillips joined the Labour Party in London in 1996. He was awarded an OBE in 1999 for services to broadcasting. Later in 1999, Phillips ran to be Labour's candidate for Mayor of London.

Phillips was initially reported to be Tony Blair's preferred choice for the role, and when Blair called for the party to swiftly unite behind one candidate, Ken Livingstone, a left-winger and favourite to win the nomination, offered to form a joint ticket with Phillips as his running mate. Phillips described Livingstone's offer as "patronising" in a response that was seen as an accusation of racism, though Phillips later denied this.^[3] Following this and other controversies, including one over his decision to send his children to a private school, Phillips withdrew from the race a few months later and was not on the final shortlist of candidates. Instead, he accepted an offer to be running mate to Frank Dobson.

Although Dobson went on to win the nomination, the contest that was seen as being fixed by use of an electoral college.^[4] Livingstone ran as an independent and won. Labour appointed Phillips as a member of the London Assembly on 4 May 2000 as one of their 'top up' candidates. He did not stand for election. Phillips served as chair of the Assembly until February 2003, before resigning his seat to take up his appointment at the Commission for Racial Equality.

Multiculturalism: disagreements with Ken Livingstone

Phillips and Livingstone had a frosty relationship throughout Phillips' time on the London Assembly, and Phillips' opposition to multiculturalism saw them clash during again during his time at the CRE. In 2006, Livingstone accused Phillips of "pandering to the right" so much that he "would soon join the BNP".^[5] Phillips himself replied that his views had been "well documented" and "well supported". Phillips has made speeches stating that "it was right to ask hard questions about multicultural Britain". Although he appologised for his misuse of statistics on levels of segregation he welcomed the focus on integration of different communities after the launch of A Commission for Integration and Cohesion.^[6]

Views on Islam and free speech

Trevor Phillips has spoken on the need for free speech to "allow people to offend each other."^[7] These comments came after the protests against the Danish cartoons satirising the Prophet Muhammad which sparked protests in the Muslim world. He stated in an ITV interview: "One point of Britishness is that people can say what they like about the way we should live, however absurd, however unpopular it is." Whilst supporting free speech, Phillips has spoken out against providing the far-right with a platform. Discussing the Oxford Union's invitation to BNP leader Nick Griffin and Holocaust-denier David Irving, he told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show: "As a former president of the National Union of Students, I'm ashamed that this has happened. This is not a question of freedom of speech, this is a juvenile provocation. What I would say to students at Oxford is: You're supposed to be brilliant. Put your brains back in your head. People fought and died for freedom of expression and freedom of speech. They didn't fight and die for it so it could be used as a sort of silly parlour game. This is just a piece of silly pranksterism and the issues are too serious to be left to that."^[8]

2005 French rioting

• After the 2005 riots in France Phillips warned that "inequality, race and powerlessness" can be "incendiary". He was invited to advise the French government and in September 2007 was awarded the Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur^[9].

Queen Mother 'joke'

During an after-dinner speech at Imperial College London on 16 June 2007 he recalled a meeting with the Queen Mother, Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, when an aide advised Phillips about dancing with the Queen Mother, 'You have to be careful where you put your hands. You have to be careful about the colostomy bag'. Phillips then reportedly paused for laughter.^[10]

Critique of America and its Race Issues

In an article published in 2003,^[11] Phillips stated "from Rome, through Constantinople to Venice and London, our (European) nations have a history of peacefully absorbing huge, diverse movements of people, driven by war, famine and persecution; and there is no history of long-term ethnic segregation of the kind one can see in any US city."

In a 2008 article for Prospect magazine, Phillips said that if Barack Obama became President of America it may "postpone the arrival of a post-racial America".^[12]

Accusations of corruption

In 2008 it was revealed through the British tabloid press that a private company co founded by Phillips and in which he owns 70% of the shares^[13], the Equate Organisation had been employed by Channel Four following the race row involving Shilpa Shetty and Jade Goody during the May 2007 series of Celebrity Big Brother. The undisclosed sum paid by C4 to Phillips and the Commission's assertion that "Trevor has gone through all the correct processes of declaring his interests, so there is no conflict"^[14] provoked widespread criticism amongst populist British newspapers whilst broadsheets failed to carry the story at all.

Opposition to 42 day Detention

In early June 2008 Phillips as ECHR head voiced that he "remain[ed] unpersuaded that the government has yet provided compelling evidence for what our legal advice shows would be an effective suspension of some human rights"^[15] Phillips was speaking as a part of the growing uproar surrounding 42 day detention and raised the possibility of the ECHR commission legally testing the legislation, beginning a judicial review which would have the potential to further destabilise the ailing Labour Brown government which has invested heavily in 42 day detention.

Institutional Racism in Britain would prevent a British Barack Obama

In a radio interview for BBC Radio 4 on November 8 2008, Trevor Philips said that he believed it would be impossible for a black candidate in the United Kingdom to rise to the top in politics because of "institutional racism". He said;

If Barack Obama had lived here I would be very surprised if even somebody as brilliant as him would have been able to break through the institutional stranglehold that there is on power within the Labour party.[1]

The wisdom of his comments has been questioned in the media because they do not seem to take into account the significant demographic differences between the United Kingdom and the United States of America making a comparison unfair. In the United States people of north European ancestry constitute 66% of the population where as in the United Kingdom the constitute over 90%. Others have noted that Trevor Philips has never been elected to any office other than the National Union of Students in 1978 and have suggested that his own failure to be elected to any political office during his career may be a factor in his decision to make these remarks. Trevor Philips was selected by the Labour Party to be the running mate of Frank Dobson in the 2000 election for Mayor of London (in which he and Frank Dobson only achieved third place behind Ken Livingston and Steve Norris), he was chosen by the Labour Party to be at the top of their party list for top-up seats to the London Assembly and therefore became an London Assembly Member without standing in a direct popular vote and was again appointed by the Labour Party in 2003 to be chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality.