Trevor Phillips

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Trevor Phillips OBE (born in London on December 31, 1953) is a Black British Labour politician and former political journalist of Guyanese origins. After supporting multiculturalism for many years, Phillips is now one of its most outspoken mainstream critics. He expressed fears that multiculturalism could cause Britain to "sleepwalk towards segregation"[1] and has argued for school selection to be amended to prevent segregation in British schools.

In 2006 he was appointed the head of a new organisation known as the Commission for Equalities and Human Rights, which will be an organisation promoting equality issues across the full raft of ethnic, gender, sexual-orientation, disability and other minority interests.[2]

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Phillips was born in London but went to secondary school in Georgetown, Guyana before returning to London to study chemistry at Imperial College London, where he became president of the students' union before his election as president of the National Union of Students in 1978 as a candidate for the Broad Left. He has had a varied career in both media and politics, working initially as a researcher for London Weekend Television (LWT), before being promoted to head of current affairs. He produced and presented The London Programme and has worked on projects for the BBC. With his brother, the crime writer Mike Phillips, he wrote Windrush: Irresistible Rise of Multi-racial Britain (1998, HarperCollins, ISBN 0-00-255909-9).

Phillips has always been close to the New Labour project. He is a friend of Tony Blair, and Peter Mandelson worked with him at London Weekend Television. Mandelson went on to be best man at Phillips' wedding to Asha Bhownagary. Phillips joined the Labour Party in London shortly before a failed campaign as mayoral candidate and before being elected to the London Assembly on 4 May 2000. He served as chair of the London Assembly until February 2003, before resigning his seat to take up his current appointment. He has campaigned on equality issues throughout his career and has made a significant contribution to the voluntary sector. He has been chair of the Runnymede Trust and commissioner for a number of other charities.

In 2006 the Mayor of London Ken Livingstone criticised Phillips views on multiculturalism stating Phillips was "pandering to the right" so much that the black chairman of the CRE "would soon join the BNP".[3] Phillips himself replied that his views had been "well documented" and "well supported". Phillips has made speeches stating that "it was right to ask hard questions about multicultural Britain". Although he appologised for his misuse of statistics on levels of segregation he welcomed the focus on integration of different communities after the launch of A Commission for Integration and Cohesion.[4]

Trevor Phillips has spoken on the need for free speech to "allow people to offend each other."[5] These comments came after the protests against the Danish cartoons satirising the Prophet Muhammad which sparked protests in the Muslim world. He stated in an ITV interview: "One point of Britishness is that people can say what they like about the way we should live, however absurd, however unpopular it is." Whilst supporting free speech, Phillips has spoken out against providing the far-right with a platform. Discussing the Oxford Union's invitation to BNP leader Nick Griffin and Holocaust-denier David Irving, he told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show: "As a former president of the National Union of Students, I'm ashamed that this has happened. This is not a question of freedom of speech, this is a juvenile provocation. What I would say to students at Oxford is: You're supposed to be brilliant. Put your brains back in your head. People fought and died for freedom of expression and freedom of speech. They didn't fight and die for it so it could be used as a sort of silly parlour game. This is just a piece of silly pranksterism and the issues are too serious to be left to that."[6]

At the 2007 Labour Party conference, he claimed that the Ottoman Turks held up the Spanish Armada in 1588 at the request of Queen Elizabeth 1 of England. The claim was made to suit his "inclusive" agenda, but is factually wrong. He made no mention of the major Muslim assaults on Europe including the (much earlier)Battle of Tours (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tours, the Battle of Vienna and the Fall of Constantinople.

He also made no reference to the Muslim slave raids on England (particularly Cornwall and the South West) that happened shortly afterwards (See BBC's 'British Slaves on the Barbary Coast').


  • After the 2005 riots in France Phillips warned that "inequality, race and powerlessness" can be "incendiary".

During a speech at Imperial College London on June 16, 2007 he recalled a meeting with the Queen Mother, Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, when an aide advised Phillips about dancing with the Queen Mother, 'You have to be careful where you put your hands. You have to be careful about the colostomy bag'. Phillips then reportedly paused for laughter.[7]

In an article published in 2003,[8] Phillips curiously stated "from Rome, through Constantinople to Venice and London, our (European) nations have a history of peacefully absorbing huge, diverse movements of people, driven by war, famine and persecution; and there is no history of long-term ethnic segregation of the kind one can see in any US city."

  1. ^ . His comments have been strongly criticised by the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone and by researchers who claim his views contradict studies which show increasing community integration in the United Kingdom. So who's right over segregation? By Dominic Casciani. BBC News
  2. ^ Ministers pick Phillips to lead new human rights and equalities body The Guardian
  3. ^ Mayor's BNP outburst at Phillips BBC News
  4. ^ UK race chief in ghetto apology BBC News
  5. ^ Muslims 'must accept' free speech BBC News
  6. ^ [1]
  7. ^ Phillips sorry for 'joke' about Queen Mother Times Online. June 18, 2007
  8. ^ More Than Skin Deep - Don't be Fooled by the Success of a Few Minority Americans - Racism is Still Rife by Trevor Phillips

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
Political offices
Preceded by
Sue Slipman		 President of the National Union of Students
1978-80		 Succeeded by
David Aaronovitch
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trevor_Phillips"
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