Labour muddle as even BAME* fails woke test

* That’s Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic, which falls foul of MPs’ new bias training

LABOUR was caught in a woke row last night after it emerged the party’s race policies contradict Parliament’s Unconscious Bias training.

The course, offered to all MPs, advises them to avoid the acronym BAME, which stands for Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic.

Yet the Labour Party has a section of its website dedicated to ‘BAME’ communities and a person to represent ‘BAME’ interests on its governing body.

The disparity has confused some of the party’s MPs who are now unsure how to refer to people of different ethnicities.

The Unconscious Bias training says ‘BAME... is problematic and should be avoided, as it puts Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic people into a category together, as though they are a homogenous group with similar lived experiences’. Instead, it advises that they should be called ‘ethnically diverse or people who experience racial inequality’.

It also takes exception to the phrase ‘ethnic minorities’, preferring the use of ‘minority ethnic’. This is because ‘the focus is more on the minoritised status rather than ethnicity’.

Yet Labour’s website has a section called ‘Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) communities and the Labour movement’. The section begins: ‘Labour has a long history of championing the rights of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) people across our country.’

‘Self-identified’ BAME members of the party also elect a representative on to its governing body, the National Executive Committee.

The Unconscious Bias guidance, states: ‘Race is a social construct going back to the 1700s and rooted in White Supremacy.’

It also cautions attendees of its training sessions not to use the word ‘normal’, adding that ‘its opposite is abnormal and does not promote inclusion’.

It warns against using ‘master/ slave language’, giving as examples ‘master suite, master copy, slaving over something’.

Phrases such as ‘blind drunk’ or ‘fallen on deaf ears’ should be avoided too, as they ‘may associate impairments with negative things’.

Last September, Rupa Huq, the Labour MP for Ealing Central and Acton, was suspended from the party after claiming that the thenChancellor Kwasi Kwarteng was ‘superficially’ black.

At a Labour Conference fringe event entitled ‘What’s Next for Labour’s Agenda on Race’, Ms Huq said: ‘Superficially he is a black man. He went to Eton, I think, he went to a very expensive prep school, all the way through, the top schools in the country.

‘If you hear him on the Today programme, you wouldn’t know he is black.’

Labour also struggled under its previous leader Jeremy Corbyn to stamp out allegations of antisemitism within the party.

It was investigated by the Equality and Human Rights Commission which found that Labour had acted unlawfully in the matter.

A Labour source said the party was aware of the BAME debate, but that the term was currently used in its rule book.