National Police Chiefs Council highlights disproportionate arrests stops force as home office insists all equal before law impartial action required.
Picture: iStock
A growing controversy over antiracism policies in British policing has forced authorities to confront an uncomfortable question: is it acceptable for the state to formally distinguish between citizens based on race in the pursuit of equality?
For South Africans, the answer is instinctively no. Our history shows the dangers of legally sanctioned racial differentiation. Yet the British debate resonates here, too, albeit in a different direction. South Africa replaced apartheid with constitutional equality, but subtle racial inequalities persist in society.
The British case, therefore, offers both a warning and a mirror.
Britain’s imperial history is deeply entangled with racial hierarchy and racial systems. While apartheid was formally institutionalised by the National Party after 1948, many mechanisms of segregation, such as land acts dispossessing black South Africans, were rooted in British colonial rule.
Today, race is once again acquiring institutional significance, this time under the banner of combating racism in Britain.
At the centre of the debate is the Police Anti-Racism Commitment. It commits policing to be not merely “non-racist”, but actively “anti-racist,” with racial equity as a guiding principle.
At first glance, the programme is to combat discrimination: eliminating racism within the police, building trust in minority communities and scrutinising arrests, stop and search powers and use of force. Yet the shift lies in moving from equality before the law to equity of outcomes between racial groups.
Equality demands impartial application of the law, regardless of race. Equity assumes that equal treatment may not suffice if different groups have different outcomes.
Police performance is now assessed through racial disparities. The National Police Chiefs’ Council in the UK has highlighted that blacks are disproportionately arrested, stopped and subjected to force. This is seen as requiring intervention.
Herein lies the contradiction: if impartial law enforcement produces unequal outcomes, should policing practices be changed to reduce disparities? And can it be achieved without taking race into account?
The debate intensified in 2026 after the death of Henry Novak in Southampton. Police initially treated the seriously injured youth as a possible aggressor after reports of a racially motivated attack. The handling sparked outrage and an apology.
The case raised the question: are officers now expected to weigh up not only the facts of an incident but also its racial implications?
In June, the controversy reached parliament. MP Rupert Lowe asked whether the Anti-Racism Commitment envisaged different treatment based on race to achieve equity.
The home office replied that all are equal before the law and police must act impartially. Yet it also confirmed the wording of the commitment was under review to ensure it could not be read as advocating differential treatment.
In SA, this logic is familiar. Affirmative action, black economic empowerment and employment equity laws are often criticised as “reverse apartheid”. But in Britain, citizens are categorised by race, outcomes measured separately and institutions required to address disparities.
The paradox is clear. Progress towards equality once meant reducing the importance of race in state-citizen relations. Equity requires the state to remain continually conscious of it.
This raises a fundamental question: can a society truly free itself from racial discrimination if, in seeking equity, the state must continually classify its citizens by race?
