Arguments about diversity in Britain often get stuck on the surface. Instead of talking about who holds power or how resources are distributed, many politicians and culture warriors obsess over the colour of faces in adverts, media and public spaces.

Reform UK MP Sarah Pochin claimed that adverts “full of black people, full of Asian people” drove her “mad”, before apologising for the wording. Conservative MP Robert Jenrick depicted Handsworth in Birmingham as a slum where he “didn’t see another white face”. One reading of this comment is that it implies that the absence of white people signals disorder or decline.

In 2020, a Sainsbury’s Christmas advert featuring a black family sparked outrage online. Critics on social media declared that the country they recognised had vanished, that “too many” adverts now featured people who didn’t look like them.

Such controversies point to the heart of a dilemma currently facing Britain: a society wrestling with deep inequalities keeps picking fights about surface-level diversity.

A central problem is that multiculturalism is often confused with what might be called “multicolourism”. Multicolourism is cosmetic. It fixates on diverse racial representation in marketing materials, political campaigns or media imagery, and it masks racial disparities in wealth, housing and senior leadership positions.

Multiculturalism, by contrast, is hard work. It isn’t just about how Britain looks, but how it functions. It aims to build institutions, norms and everyday practices that enable different communities to disagree, collaborate and coexist while enjoying equal rights and opportunities. It is about the........

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