Last month, Labour leader Keir Starmer announced that all Labour staff members, including himself, would undergo compulsory unconscious bias training. This comes after the criticism he received following a BBC Breakfast interview where he described the Black Lives Matter movement as a “moment” and dismissed one of the fundamental aims of the movement — defunding the police — as “nonsense.”

This was a missed opportunity at a critical time when black people worldwide are campaigning against systemic racism and racial inequality and for the liberation of all black lives. Following the death of George Floyd, calls to defund the police have gained momentum in the United States and the UK. While no one expects a leading politician to come out staunchly in support of abolitionism or the defunding of the police, the fact that Starmer flippantly dismissed the notion as “nonsense” while restating his strong support for the police was thoughtless and insensitive. Especially in the same week it was revealed that two police officers took selfies with the dead bodies of black women. 

There was nothing “unconscious” about Starmer’s strategic choice of words. His choice of words was conscious in its attempt to appeal to a subset of white voters, particularly those in the so-called red wall seats that the Labour Party lost at the last general election. But not only these — the rhetoric was surely calculated to appeal to more than a few columnists at right-wing newspapers as well. Unsurprisingly, it received the endorsement of Nigel Farage.