5-minute read
Dermot Feenan
LLB MA LLM Barrister-at-Law (non-practising) FRSA
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Travellers, the ethnic group, experience widespread and profoundly damaging discrimination in the United Kingdom (and elsewhere).
This helps explain why, on Monday, 10 May 2021, I launched a petition about a programme which reinforced that discrimination. I’ll say more about that petition shortly. But first, some context.
Context
The discrimination I refer to draws on long-standing, harmful stereotypes of Travellers. The stereotypes are centuries old. They are implicated in systemic disadvantages for Travellers which are reflected in restrictions on movement and housing, discrimination in access to goods and services, hate crime, and higher indicators of deprivation – including in education and health – than for the sedentary population.
On 16 April 2020, Channel 4 broadcast a programme ‘The Truth About Traveller Crime: Dispatches’.
The programme reinforced these stereotypes, causing deep distress among Travellers. The programme triggered an increase in anti-Traveller hate.
The programme aired during a period of ongoing political shift to the right in the United Kingdom. This shift, particularly within the far right, is associated with an alarming increase in racial hate, clearly linked with the Brexit campaign – as I noted in my article ‘Brexit and the Rekindling of Anti-Irish Racism’ – but it draws from much deeper, historical racism.
Travellers are especially vulnerable to such racism. They are small in number. Due to the discrimination they have faced, they tend not to occupy positions of political power. Almost all are white. They are sometimes not included in contemporary concerns about racism – which have tended to treat racism as affecting only Black and brown people. Legally, ‘race’ isn’t limited to skin colour. Racial discrimination is also unlawful on the basis of ethnicity, nationality or national origins.
Where I come in
I was, therefore, deeply concerned at ‘The Truth About Traveller Crime’. Many other people had similar concerns.
As I mentioned in a recent blog for The Traveller Movement, while I am not a Traveller, I am northern Irish (holding dual British and Irish citizenship).
I trained as a barrister but have worked mostly as a law academic; intermittently in England for the last seven-and-a-half years. My work focuses on equality and non-discrimination law.
I’ve been increasingly concerned at the political shift towards the far right in the United Kingdom.
I grew up during the recent period of violent sectarian and political violence in the north of Ireland. I was born into a Catholic family in a predominantly Nationalist community.
I started primary school there in 1969, within weeks of the deployment of the British Army after scores of homes and businesses were burnt out, most of them owned by Catholics, and thousands of mostly Catholic families were driven from their homes. That deployment, known as ‘Operation Banner’, was the longest continuous deployment in British military history. The so-called ‘Troubles’ were the backdrop to much of my life.
Throughout much of that period, I lived with low-level anxiety and the material disadvantages that result from being part of a community subjected to stereotypes. I’ve seen how they take hold, poison minds, and blight policies, laws and practices. They have divided people and stunted communities. I know too many people killed, physically maimed or psychologically traumatised by the effects of prejudice to stand back when I can intervene to help prevent it.
As Irish, I am also concerned to uphold state recognition of Travellers as ‘a distinct ethnic group within the Irish nation’.
As a socialist, I also believe that it is essential to stand up for the rights of others to be free from racialisation and other attempts to render them inferior. Socialism also requires addressing systemic and institutional barriers to social justice.
Background to the petition – complaint
On 8 May 2020, I lodged a complaint with Ofcom, the UK’s broadcast regulator, regarding the ‘The Truth About Traveller Crime’. That complaint is linked in the following tweet.
I set out in my complaint several charges of breach of the Ofcom Broadcasting Code. One such breach was that the programme subjects Travellers to harmful and offensive material by using a number of stereotypes; for example, criminality and lawlessness.
I was not the only complainant. Numerous complaints were submitted to Ofcom (and Channel 4) by individuals, organisations, and the All-party Parliamentary Group for Gypsies, Travellers and Roma.
On or about 26 May 2020, Ofcom announced its decision to conduct an investigation into the programme. Ofcom’s Procedures state that Ofcom aims to complete investigations within 50 working days. Almost 250 working days have now elapsed since that announcement.
I wrote to Ofcom on 23 September 2020 to request an estimate of when it would complete its investigation. I received a reply from Ofcom on 18 November 2020 informing me that it ‘is working to conclude this investigation and publish the outcome as swiftly as possible.’
I pointed out then that Ofcom Procedures state that Ofcom aims to complete investigations within 50 working days and that 126 working days had elapsed. I asked for a new estimated timeframe for completion of the investigation.
Ofcom replied, 20 November 2020: ‘Complex cases often take longer to investigate. While we are unable to provide a specific timeframe, concluding this investigation in the shortest time possible remains our priority’ (see next image). That was 23 weeks ago.
While I appreciate that investigations might have been slowed by the coronavirus pandemic, Ofcom has not given this as a reason for the delay. Ofcom has started and completed other investigations within this period.
On 27 November 2020, I wrote to Ofcom’s Chief Executive, Dame Melanie Dawes, requesting, with reference to Ofcom’s statutory duties:
🔹 an indication of the time for completion of the investigation,
🔹 amendment of the Procedures.
Dame Melanie hasn’t replied to that letter.
The Chief Executive’s non-response to correspondence reasonably raising concerns about the investigation is a serious matter. Ofcom is created by legislation to undertake statutory functions, including enforcement of broadcasting standards through the Broadcasting Code.
On 11 December 2020, I wrote to the Co-chairs of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Gypsies, Travellers and Roma to share my concerns about Ofcom’s delay and to request that it raise the matter in Parliament.
Martin Docherty-Hughes MP, Co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Gypsies, Travellers and Roma wrote to Dame Melanie Dawes by letter dated 19 January 2021 sharing concerns at the ‘perceived lack of progress’ in the investigation (below).
I understand that Ofcom subsequently stated that due to the complexities of the investigation it was taking more time to give the matter full consideration.
This is the same reason given in November 2020: complexity. If it was complex in autumn 2020, why (especially in view of numerous complaints and very public ongoing concerns) has Ofcom not properly resourced this investigation to bring it to timely conclusion by late spring 2021?
Ofcom has not provided an explanation as to why this investigation is complex. The investigation should not be so complex that no decision could reasonably be expected within a year. Has Channel 4 released all the data? Has Ofcom subjected it to prompt analysis?
Ofcom’s executive is not acting in a manner which respects the spirit of its own Procedures. The Chief Executive has not replied to a reasonable enquiry to provide information about the investigation. Ofcom has not provided any recent update for the ongoing delay.
There has been extensive concern at Ofcom’s delay in concluding the investigation, illustrated in part by the fact that the hashtag #WheresOfcom has been adopted widely on social media.
The failings by Ofcom are especially damaging to Travellers, not least as the delay prolongs uncertainty and, in the absence of any finding that there has been a breach of the Broadcasting Code, allows anti-Traveller views resulting from the programme to persist.
Such views, and associated harms, have been well-documented, as noted in my complaint and in ‘Hate: “As regular as rain”—A pilot research project into the psychological effects of hate crime on Gypsy, Traveller and Roma communities’.
Petition
This is why—over a year after my complaint was lodged—it has been necessary to petition the Chair of the Board of Ofcom to request that these concerns be addressed by the Board. The Board’s duties include oversight over fulfilment of Ofcom’s general duties and specific statutory responsibilities.
The Chief Executive of Ofcom is ultimately accountable to the Board of Ofcom.
The petition requests, in particular, that the Board arrange:
- an inquiry into these concerns with a view to immediate public announcement of the status of the investigation (including estimated date of completion of the investigation),
- explanation for the delay in the investigation,
- a swift conclusion of the investigation,
- release of a decision at the earliest, and
- necessary revision of the Procedures.
The next meeting of the Board is on 26 May 2021.
The petition is addressed to the Chair/ Interim Chair. It will remain open at least until the evening before that meeting.
The Chair/Interim Chair of the Ofcom Board will be notified of the petition’s existence and its end date at least 2 weeks before the meeting.
If you agree that the Ofcom Board should address these concerns, please sign and share the petition – linked below.