Baroness Lawrence appointed Labour’s race-relations adviser

Jamaica-born Doreen Lawrence, who came to prominence nearly three decades ago campaigning for justice for the racially motivated killing of her son Stephen, has been named to lead the Labour party’s investigation into why blacks and Asians become more critically ill and die at a higher rate than other Britons in the UK’s COVID-19 crisis.

Lawrence, a Labour peer, was named to the job last week by the party’s new leader, Keir Starmer, who said that she would bring “drive and determination” to the effort.

“Doreen Lawrence has spent almost three decades campaigning against injustice,” Starmer said at the launch of the review with a round table on Friday, April 24. “I have seen first-hand her drive and determination, and was proud to stand beside her in fighting for justice for her son Stephen. Her achievements embody Labour’s values and our historic mission to create a fairer, more equal society.”

More than 20,000 have so far died in the UK from the pandemic, and while specific numbers are not available of how many of them are black, Asian or other minority ethnics, they are believed to be over-represented in proportion to their population by at least a factor of two. Official figures show more than a third of people in intensive care from COVID-19 are from BAME backgrounds – almost triple the proportion of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) people in the wider population. All 14 doctors known to have died from the virus were from BAME backgrounds, causing National Health Service England to announce a planned study of the phenomenon.

With regard to the wider population, blacks and Asians are generally poorer than whites and more likely to have the underlying conditions, such as hypertension and diabetes, that make them more susceptible to the coronavirus, COVID-19.

“The coronavirus pandemic has brought society together, but it has also exposed the gulf in living standards that still blights our communities,” Lawrence said at the round table. “Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities have long been disadvantaged by the social and economic injustice which still exists in our country. There is a clear and tragic pattern emerging of the pandemic’s impact on those communities, which must be better understood.”

Starmer said disparities highlighted by the COVID-19 crisis were not a matter to be investigated “once the crisis is over”.

“We must address it now,” he said.