Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities

The Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities (CRED) was a UK Government commission supported by the Race Disparity Unit of the Cabinet Office. It was established in 2020 in the wake of Black Lives Matter protests following the murder of George Floyd.^[1] Boris Johnson gave it the brief of investigating race and ethnic disparities in the UK. Johnson argued that the UK needed to consider important questions about race relations and disparities and that a thorough examination of why so many disparities persist and what needed to be done to work out to eliminate or mitigate them.

Commission members were recruited by political adviser Munira Mirza, who has previously denied the existence of structural and institutional racism.^[2][3] The members were Tony Sewell (who was appointed in July 2020 to lead the Commission), Maggie Aderin-Pocock, Aftab Chughtai, Keith Fraser, Ajay Kakkar, Naureen Khalid, Dambisa Moyo, Mercy Muroki, Martyn Oliver, Samir Shah and Kunle Olulode.^[4][5] The Observer reported that the members did not write all of the report, nor was it made available in full to them prior to publication.^[6]

The commission published its report in March 2021, the content of which caused considerable controversy.^{[7][8][9][10][11]} The report concluded that the "claim the country is still institutionally racist is not borne out by the evidence", but some experts complained that the report misrepresented evidence, and that recommendations from ethnic minority business leaders who contributed were ignored.^[12] Seun Matiluko has written that CRED "would become one of the most controversial government commissions of the 21st century".^[11] Additionally, a section on the Caribbean slave trade was amended, following widespread criticism that it glorified the practice and downplayed its negative effects.^[13][14]