Crisis Racism and the Introduction of Fundamental British Values

Abstract

This chapter provides an account of the introduction of fundamental British values (2011) and the Prevent duty (2015). Framed as racial crisis events the narrative begins with the introduction of fundamental British values in 2012, leading into a critical discussion of the Trojan horse investigation in Birmingham schools in 2014 and the subsequent strengthening of fundamental British values requirement (DfE in Promoting fundamental British values as part of SMSC in schools, 2014). The speeches of Prime Minister David Cameron are analysed to highlight the Coalition government’s repudiation of state multiculturalism and Cameron’s claim that British values are Christian values. The requirements of the Prevent duty (2015) that teachers surveil their students for signs of radicalisation are critically assessed as a fundamental recalibration of the role of teachers as education pastorate to de facto agents of state security. The chapter concludes with a critical review of recent government disavowals of structural racism, by arguing that the conditions for this new turn in racial politics was made possible by fundamental British values and Prevent as a form of ‘cultural engineering’.