The advancement of racial neoliberalism in Britain

Abstract

This paper explores the advancement of racial neoliberalism in Britain, and notes the genealogy of the evaporation of race post-Macpherson to demonstrate that, while the terms of race are increasingly erased from public and institutional discourse, the institutionalization of racism continues unbounded, legitimated through the ‘War on Terror’. This dichotomy comes together under the ‘Prevent’ agenda which, as it maps onto ‘Community Cohesion’, has become the dominant thread of state policy on race. Thus, while any progressive measures using race for the purposes of anti-racism fade from view, they are increasingly overshadowed by a position which uses race, silently and ambiguously, through policies of policing and securitization. Consequently we move towards a place where the only mode in which race is spoken by the state is for the purposes of discipline and control.