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Sir Mark Trevor Phillips (born 31 December 1953) is a British writer, broadcaster and former politician who served as Chair of the
London Assembly
The London Assembly is a 25-member elected body, part of the Greater London Authority, that scrutinises the activities of the Mayor of London and has the power, with a two-thirds super-majority, to amend the Mayor's annual budget and to reject ...
from 2000 to 2001 and from 2002 to 2003. He presented ''
Trevor Phillips on Sunday'', a
Sunday morning talk show
A Sunday morning talk show is a television program with a news/ talk/ public affairs–hybrid format that is broadcast on Sunday mornings. This type of program originated in the United States, and has since been used in other countries.
Overview
T ...
on
Sky News
Sky News is a British free-to-air television news channel and organisation. Sky News is distributed via an English-language radio news service, and through online channels. It is owned by Sky Group, a division of Comcast. John Ryley is the hea ...
, from 2021 to 2022.
Phillips was appointed head of the
Commission for Racial Equality
The Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) was a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom which aimed to address racial discrimination and promote racial equality. The commission was established in 1976, and disbanded in 2007 when its ...
(CRE) by Prime Minister
Tony Blair
Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He previously served as Leader of th ...
in 2003 and was the chairman of its successor, the
Equality and Human Rights Commission
The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is a non-departmental public body in Great Britain, established by the Equality Act 2006 with effect from 1 October 2007. The Commission has responsibility for the promotion and enforcement of eq ...
(EHRC), from 2007 to 2012. He has been a television presenter and executive.
After retirement, he continued to chair numerous corporate and social boards. Phillips was the President of the Partnership Council of the
John Lewis Partnership
The John Lewis Partnership plc (JLP) is a British company which operates John Lewis & Partners department stores, Waitrose & Partners supermarkets, its banking and financial services, and other retail-related activities. The privately-held publ ...
from 2015 to 2019 and was the first external appointment for the role since 1928.
Early life and education
Mark Trevor Phillips was born in
Islington
Islington () is a district in the north of Greater London, England, and part of the London Borough of Islington. It is a mainly residential district of Inner London, extending from Islington's High Street to Highbury Fields, encompassing the ar ...
, London, the youngest of ten children. His parents emigrated from then
British Guiana
British Guiana was a British colony, part of the mainland British West Indies, which resides on the northern coast of South America. Since 1966 it has been known as the independent nation of Guyana.
The first European to encounter Guiana was S ...
in 1950. He spent his childhood partly in British Guiana, and partly in
Wood Green
Wood Green is a suburban district in the borough of Haringey in London, England. Its postal district is N22, with parts in N8 or N15. The London Plan identifies it as one of the metropolitan centres in Greater London, and today it forms a maj ...
,
north London
North London is the northern part of London, England, north of the River Thames. It extends from Clerkenwell and Finsbury, on the edge of the City of London financial district, to Greater London's boundary with Hertfordshire.
The term ''nort ...
; he attended
Wood Green County Grammar School (which became Wood Green Comprehensive in 1967) on
White Hart Lane
White Hart Lane was a Association football, football stadium in Tottenham, North London and the home of Tottenham Hotspur F.C., Tottenham Hotspur Football Club from 1899 to 2017. Its capacity varied over the years; when changed to all-seater i ...
, but took his A-levels at
Queen's College in
Georgetown, Guyana
Georgetown is the capital (political), capital and largest city of Guyana. It is situated in Demerara-Mahaica, region 4, on the Atlantic Ocean coast, at the mouth of the Demerara River. It is nicknamed the "Garden City of the Caribbean." It is t ...
. He returned to England to study at
Imperial College London
Imperial College London (legally Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom. Its history began with Prince Albert, consort of Queen Victoria, who developed his vision for a cu ...
, where he obtained a
BSc
A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years.
The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University ...
degree in
chemistry
Chemistry is the science, scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a natural science that covers the Chemical element, elements that make up matter to the chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules and ions ...
in 1975.
Broadcasting and writing career
Phillips worked initially as a researcher for
London Weekend Television
London Weekend Television (LWT) (now part of the non-franchised ITV London region) was the ITV network franchise holder for Greater London and the Home Counties at weekends, broadcasting from Fridays at 5.15 pm (7:00 pm from 1968 unt ...
(LWT), before being promoted to head of current affairs in 1992, remaining in the post until 1994. He produced and presented ''
The London Programme
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
'' for LWT and has worked on projects for the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
and
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned enterprise, state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a four ...
. With his brother, the crime writer
Mike Phillips, he wrote ''
Windrush: The Irresistible Rise of Multi-racial Britain'' (1998,
HarperCollins
HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies, alongside Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. The company is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of News Cor ...
, ). He has won three
Royal Television Society
The Royal Television Society (RTS) is a British-based educational charity for the discussion, and analysis of television in all its forms, past, present, and future. It is the oldest television society in the world. It currently has fourteen r ...
(RTS) awards, including Documentary Series of the Year for ''Windrush'' in 1999. He is a Vice President of the
RTS
RTS may refer to:
Medicine
* Rape trauma syndrome, the psychological trauma experienced by a rape victim
* Revised Trauma Score, a system to evaluate injuries secondary to violent trauma
* Rubinstein–Taybi syndrome, a condition characterized by ...
.
In March 2015,
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned enterprise, state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a four ...
aired ''Things We Won't Say About Race (That Are True)'', a feature-length documentary written and presented by Phillips and co-produced by Pepper Productions and Outline Productions. Phillips was invited to analyse and interpret the survey for the documentary ''What British Muslims Really Think'' aired April 2016, which followed similar themes to ''Things We Won't Say About Race (That Are True)'' relating to exploring racial truths through statistics.
From 2021 to 2022, Phillips covered for
Sophy Ridge
Sophy Arabella Ridge (born 17 October 1984) is an English broadcast journalist. She currently works for Sky News and has presented ''Sophy Ridge on Sunday'' since 2017, (and can be accessehere. In 2022, she launched ''The Take with Sophy Ridge' ...
's
Sky News
Sky News is a British free-to-air television news channel and organisation. Sky News is distributed via an English-language radio news service, and through online channels. It is owned by Sky Group, a division of Comcast. John Ryley is the hea ...
Sunday morning programme ''
Sophy Ridge on Sunday
''Sophy Ridge on Sunday'' (also ''Sunday with Niall Paterson'') is a Sky News Sunday morning talk show fronted by Sophy Ridge. It was launched on 8 January 2017 and is currently broadcast on Sundays at 8:30am to 9:30am. It is followed by ''Sophy ...
'' whilst she was on maternity leave. His programme was temporarily rebranded as ''Trevor Phillips on Sunday''.
Political activity
As a student at Imperial he became president of its
students' union
A students' union, also known by many other names, is a student organization present in many colleges, universities, and high schools. In higher education, the students' union is often accorded its own building on the campus, dedicated to social, ...
. In 1978 he was elected president of the
National Union of Students as a candidate for the
Broad Left
The Broad Left was a political faction within the National Union of Students of the United Kingdom (NUS) during the 1970s. It consisted of a working relationship between the Labour Party, the Liberal Party, Plaid Cymru, the Communist Party of ...
.
Phillips was served as chairman of the
Runnymede Trust
The Runnymede Trust is a race equality think tank in the United Kingdom. It was founded in 1968 by Jim Rose and Anthony Lester as an independent source for generating intelligence for a multi-ethnic Britain through research, network building, ...
, a
think-tank
A think tank, or policy institute, is a research institute that performs research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, technology, and culture. Most think tanks are non-governmental org ...
promoting ethnic equality, from 1993 to 1998, and as a commissioner for a number of other charities. He also served as chairman of the
London Arts Board. His long-standing friendship with
Peter Mandelson
Peter Benjamin Mandelson, Baron Mandelson (born 21 October 1953) is a British Labour Party politician who served as First Secretary of State from 2009 to 2010. He was President of the Board of Trade in 1998 and from 2008 to 2010. He is the ...
(who worked with Phillips at LWT and was best man at his first wedding) brought him close to the
New Labour
New Labour was a period in the history of the British Labour Party from the mid to late 1990s until 2010 under the leadership of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. The name dates from a conference slogan first used by the party in 1994, later seen ...
project and he became friendly with
Tony Blair
Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He previously served as Leader of th ...
. Phillips joined the
Labour Party in London in 1996.
Later in 1999, Phillips ran to be Labour's candidate for
Mayor of London
The mayor of London is the chief executive of the Greater London Authority. The role was created in 2000 after the 1998 Greater London Authority referendum, Greater London devolution referendum in 1998, and was the first Directly elected may ...
. Phillips was initially reported to be Blair's preferred choice for the role, and when Blair called for the party to swiftly unite behind one candidate,
Ken Livingstone
Kenneth Robert Livingstone (born 17 June 1945) is an English politician who served as the Leader of the Greater London Council (GLC) from 1981 until the council was abolished in 1986, and as Mayor of London from the creation of the office i ...
, a left-winger and favourite to win the nomination, offered to form a joint ticket with Phillips as his running mate. Phillips described Livingstone's offer as "patronising" in a response that was seen as an accusation of racism, though Phillips later denied this. Following this and other controversies, including his decision to send his children to a private school, Phillips withdrew from the race a few months later and was not on the final shortlist of candidates. Instead, he accepted an offer to be running mate to
Frank Dobson
Frank Gordon Dobson (15 March 1940 – 11 November 2019) was a British Labour Party politician. As Member of Parliament (MP) for Holborn and St. Pancras from 1979 to 2015, he served in the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Health from 1997 ...
.
Although Dobson won the nomination, his candidature was harmed by the perception that the contest was "fixed" by the use of an electoral college. Livingstone ran as an independent and won. The Labour Party designated Phillips as a member of the
London Assembly
The London Assembly is a 25-member elected body, part of the Greater London Authority, that scrutinises the activities of the Mayor of London and has the power, with a two-thirds super-majority, to amend the Mayor's annual budget and to reject ...
on 4 May 2000 as one of its "top-up" candidates. Phillips served as chairman of the Assembly until February 2003, resigning his seat to take up his appointment at the
Commission for Racial Equality
The Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) was a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom which aimed to address racial discrimination and promote racial equality. The commission was established in 1976, and disbanded in 2007 when its ...
.
In March 2020, Phillips was suspended from Labour following allegations of
Islamophobia
Islamophobia is the fear of, hatred of, or prejudice against the religion of Islam or Muslims in general, especially when seen as a geopolitical force or a source of terrorism.
The scope and precise definition of the term ''Islamophobia'' ...
. Following the suspension, Phillips defended his comments about
British Muslims
Islam is the second largest religion in the United Kingdom, with results from the 2011 Census giving the total population as 2,786,635, or 4.4% of the total UK population,[BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...]
's
''Today'' programme. The suspension was lifted in July 2021.
Multiculturalism: disagreements with Ken Livingstone
Phillips and Livingstone had a frosty relationship throughout Phillips's time on the London Assembly, and Phillips's opposition to
multiculturalism
The term multiculturalism has a range of meanings within the contexts of sociology, political philosophy, and colloquial use. In sociology and in everyday usage, it is a synonym for "Pluralism (political theory), ethnic pluralism", with the tw ...
saw them clash time and again during his tenure at the CRE. In a ''Times'' interview in April 2004, Phillips said the government should stop supporting multiculturalism, claiming it was out of date and legitimised "separateness" between communities, and instead should "assert a core of Britishness".
In 2006, Livingstone accused Phillips of "pandering to the right" so much that he "would soon join the
BNP". Phillips 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 apologised for his presentation of research by the Australian academic Michael Poulsen of statistics on levels of segregation, which had led to some controversy, he welcomed the focus on integration of different communities after the launch of A Commission for Integration and Cohesion. Phillips has subsequently cited recent work by, amongst others, Professor
Eric Kaufmann
Eric Peter Kaufmann is a Canadian professor of politics at Birkbeck, University of London. He is a specialist on Orangeism in Northern Ireland, nationalism, and political and religious demography. He has authored, co-authored, and edited multipl ...
of Birkbeck College, London showing that white and non-white segregation in London and Birmingham has increased during the census period to 2011.
After the 2005 riots in France, Phillips warned that "inequality, race and powerlessness" can be "incendiary". He was invited to advise the French government and in September 2007 was awarded the
Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur
The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon B ...
.
Phillips wrote in May 2016: "Rome may not yet be in flames, but I think I can smell the smouldering whilst we hum to the music of liberal self-delusion" by ignoring the effects of mass immigration to the United Kingdom, explicitly comparing his warning to
Enoch Powell
John Enoch Powell, (16 June 1912 – 8 February 1998) was a British politician, classical scholar, author, linguist, soldier, philologist, and poet. He served as a Conservative Member of Parliament (1950–1974) and was Minister of Health (1 ...
's 1968
Rivers of Blood speech
The "Rivers of Blood" speech was made by British Member of Parliament (MP) Enoch Powell on 20 April 1968, to a meeting of the Conservative Political Centre in Birmingham, United Kingdom. His speech strongly criticised mass immigration, especi ...
.
Views on free speech
Phillips has spoken on the need for free speech to "allow people to offend each other". These comments came after the protests against the Danish cartoons satirising the Islamic prophet, Muhammad which sparked protests in the Muslim community. 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."
While supporting free speech, Phillips has spoken out against providing the
far-right
Far-right politics, also referred to as the extreme right or right-wing extremism, are political beliefs and actions further to the right of the left–right political spectrum than the standard political right, particularly in terms of being ...
with a platform. Discussing the
Oxford Union
The Oxford Union Society, commonly referred to simply as the Oxford Union, is a debating society in the city of Oxford England, whose membership is drawn primarily from the University of Oxford. Founded in 1823, it is one of Britain's oldest ...
's invitation to
BNP leader
Nick Griffin
Nicholas John Griffin (born 1 March 1959) is a British politician and white supremacist who represented North West England as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from 2009 to 2014. He served as chairman and then president of the far-righ ...
and Holocaust denier
David Irving
David John Cawdell Irving (born 24 March 1938) is an English author and Holocaust denier who has written on the military and political history of World War II, with a focus on Nazi Germany. His works include ''The Destruction of Dresden'' (19 ...
, 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." Griffin has since hit back at Phillips by declaring him a "black racist" in an interview given to Channel 4.
Opposition to 42-day detention
In early June 2008 Phillips as EHRC head said that he "remain
dunpersuaded that the government has yet provided compelling evidence for what our legal advice shows would be an effective suspension of some human rights". Phillips was responding to the growing uproar surrounding proposals to amend counter-terrorism legislation to permit 42 days' detention without charge. He raised the possibility of the EHRC legally testing the legislation by judicial review. In the event, the
Brown government
Gordon Brown formed the Brown ministry after being invited by Queen Elizabeth II
Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 Februar ...
maintained the limit on detention without charge at 28 days (although in practice a 14-day limit was observed). Following the installation of a
Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition government, the limit was in January 2011 allowed to revert to 14 days.
Views on Islam
In 1996 Phillips initiated and sat on the
Runnymede Trust
The Runnymede Trust is a race equality think tank in the United Kingdom. It was founded in 1968 by Jim Rose and Anthony Lester as an independent source for generating intelligence for a multi-ethnic Britain through research, network building, ...
's Commission on British Muslims and Islamophobia, whose report ''Islamophobia: a challenge for us all'' reviewed the state of anti-Muslim prejudice in the UK. The report helped establish the term "Islamophobia" in UK discourse and it noted that abuse against Muslims was often racialised therefore "a legal term such as ‘religious and racial violence’ is required". It also stated that Islamophobia stemmed from closed views seeing British Muslims as monolithic, separate, and different.
The Commission's proposals were in part implemented in UK legislation in the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006 and the Equality Act 2010, both of which he influenced as Chair of the EHRC. Phillips later developed his views and in 2016, as part of his Channel 4 documentary ''What British Muslims Really Think'', he said that the commission had correctly recognised the existence of incidents of abuse against British Muslims "but we got almost everything else wrong". Phillips own analysis for ''The Sunday Times'' asserted that the reference to the creation of a "nation within a nation" is not to Muslims as a whole, but to a significant minority and that the documentary acknowledged the diversity among British Muslims.
He went on to say that far from suggesting that Muslims as a group are in some way at fault, he questioned whether the rest of Britain needed to re-examine its own norms and behaviours.
Responses to the documentary were mixed. In ''
The Spectator
''The Spectator'' is a weekly British magazine on politics, culture, and current affairs. It was first published in July 1828, making it the oldest surviving weekly magazine in the world.
It is owned by Frederick Barclay, who also owns ''The ...
'', political commentator
Douglas Murray praised Phillips's ability to "break taboos which too many liberals in the UK are keen to continue enforcing", calling Islamophobia a "fraudulent concept", while his colleague
James Delingpole
James Mark Court Delingpole (born 6 August 1965) is an English writer, journalist, and columnist who has written for a number of publications, including the '' Daily Mail'', the '' Daily Express'', ''The Times'', ''The Daily Telegraph'', and ' ...
said it was a "brave and honest programme", and the British public knew "large numbers of Muslims don't want to integrate, that their views aren't remotely enlightened".
Simon Woolley
Simon Andrew Woolley, Baron Woolley of Woodford, (born 24 December 1961) is a political and equalities activist. He is the founder and director of Operation Black Vote and Trustee of the charity Police Now. Woolley has been a crossbench member ...
, founder of
Operation Black Vote
Operation Black Vote (OBV) is a British non-partisan and not-for-profit national organisation, established in 1996 to address the Black British and ethnic minority democratic deficit. OBV has recruited church leaders to persuade people to register ...
, said the documentary pandered to prejudice, treated Muslims as a monolithic group and gave "no historical or social/political context". Writing for the ''Middle East Eye'',
Peter Oborne
Peter Alan Oborne (; born 11 July 1957) is a British journalist and broadcaster. He is the former chief political commentator of ''The Daily Telegraph'', from which he resigned in early 2015. He is author of ''The Rise of Political Lying'', ''Th ...
said Phillips had employed a double standard to attack social conservatism by comparing British Muslim views against Britain as a whole, rather than against other UK religious groups. In terms of views on homosexuality, religious devotion, and the role of women, Oborne said "Phillips could have carried out a similar poll of Conservative Party activists, of Roman Catholics, of orthodox Jews, or many other religious minorities and come up with something roughly similar."
In August 2017, following the conviction of 17 men and one woman in Newcastle for child sex abuse offences Phillips wrote that the description of the men as simply "Asian" was an injustice to the majority of the UK's Asian population, including many Muslims. A Home Office report subsequently showed child sexual abuse gangs were typically divided on race lines, but more widely that the majority of child sex offenders were made up of white men under the age of 30.
Phillips was suspended from the
Labour Party pending investigation into alleged Islamophobia based on his past statements, a move which he called "
Corbyn Corbyn is a surname and a given name. Notable people with the name include:
Surname
* Frederick Corbyn (1791–1853), British surgeon in India
* Jeremy Corbyn (born 1949), British politician and leader of the Labour Party 2015–2020
* Piers Corbyn ...
ista payback" and "pure political gangsterism". Labour MP
Khalid Mahmood defended Phillips saying the "charges are so outlandish as to bring disrepute on all involved in making them". Phillips defended his statements on BBC Radio 4's ''Today'' programme, reiterating his view that Muslims should not be treated as a racial group and saying "Muslims are different, and in many ways I think that’s admirable". Asked about his generalisations about British Muslims he said "if you do belong to a group...you identify with a particular set of values, and you stand for it. And frankly you are judged by that". Conservative Member of the House of Lords
Sayeeda Warsi
Sayeeda Hussain Warsi, Baroness Warsi, (; born 28 March 1971) is a British lawyer, politician, and member of the House of Lords who served as co-Chairwoman of the Conservative Party from 2010 to 2012. She served in the Cameron–Clegg coalit ...
responded that "Phillips cannot treat Muslims as a homogenised group when it suits him, then later deny they are racialised".
Phillips has pointed out that his actual remarks were reported by ''The Times'' on 27 January 2016.
Phillips's suspension from the Labour Party was lifted in June 2021, though investigations had not concluded.
Boards and appointments
Phillips is chairman of Green Park Interim and Executive Recruitment, director of WebberPhillips, a data analytics provider.
He was the cofounder and director of Pepper Productions, an independent television production company, now dormant following the demise of co-founder Charles Armitage. He has been a member of the board of the
Barbican Arts Centre
The Barbican Centre is a performing arts centre in the Barbican Estate of the City of London and the largest of its kind in Europe. The centre hosts classical and contemporary music concerts, theatre performances, film screenings and art exhi ...
, the Council of
Aldeburgh Music
Britten Pears Arts (formerly known as Aldeburgh Music) is a pioneering cultural charity based in Suffolk, England. It emerged from the determination of composer Benjamin Britten and his partner, singer Peter Pears, to ensure that everyone could e ...
, and a trustee of the Social Mobility Foundation, among other charities.
Equality and Human Rights Commission
Phillips became head of the
Commission for Racial Equality
The Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) was a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom which aimed to address racial discrimination and promote racial equality. The commission was established in 1976, and disbanded in 2007 when its ...
in 2003, and on its abolition in 2006 was appointed full-time chairman of its successor, the EHRC (initially called the Commission for Equality and Human Rights), which had a broader remit of combating discrimination and promoting equality across other grounds (age, disability, gender, race, religion and belief, sexual orientation and gender reassignment). The EHRC also had the role of promoting and defending human rights, and secured recognition as the
national human rights institution
A national human rights institution (NHRI) is an independent state-based institution with the responsibility to broadly protect and promote human rights in a given country. The growth of such bodies has been encouraged by the Office of the United ...
for England and Wales (alongside separate commissions in Northern Ireland and Scotland). Phillips's tenure as EHRC chairman (which at his request became a part-time position in 2009) was at times controversial.
Phillips's tenure as
EHRC chairman is the longest for any individual in any similar position in the UK. It was said to be dogged by controversies and internal dissent. Under his leadership, six of the body's commissioners departed after expressing concerns about his leadership and probity and others were reported to be considering their position. However, they were replaced and Phillips later completed his term in September 2012.
In 2010 Phillips was investigated regarding alleged attempts to influence a Parliamentary committee (the Joint Committee on Human Rights) writing a report on him. He would have been the first non-politician in over half a century to be convicted of
contempt of Parliament, but the Lords Committee found that the allegations were "subjective, and that no firm factual evidence is presented in their support; nor are they borne out by the submissions by individual members of the JCHR." He was cleared of contempt of Parliament and the House of Lords recommended that new and clearer guidance about the conduct of witnesses to Select Committees be issued. However, he was told his behaviour was "inappropriate and ill-advised".
Phillips completed his second term of office in September 2012, which, together with his term at the CRE made him the longest serving leader of any UK equality commission.
In 2006 Phillips said that Britain's current approach to multiculturalism could cause Britain to "sleepwalk towards segregation". He expanded on these views in 2016 in a publication by Civitas entitled ''Race and Faith: the Deafening Silence'', in which he said that "squeamishness about addressing diversity and its discontents risks allowing our country to sleepwalk to a catastrophe that will set community against community, endorse sexist aggression, suppress freedom of expression, reverse hard-won civil liberties, and undermine the liberal democracy that has served this country so well for so long."
Comparisons between Britain and the United States
In an article published in 2003, Phillips stated that "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".
In a March 2008 article fo
''Prospect'' magazine Phillips supported
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...
as a potential Presidential candidate, and speculated that if he did become President it might "postpone the arrival of a
post-racial America
Post-racial United States is a theoretical environment in which the United States is free from racial preference, discrimination, and prejudice.
Origins of the term
One of the earliest uses of the term "post-racial" to describe the United State ...
". Following Obama's election, in an interview for ''
The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...
'' on 8 November 2008, Phillips said that he believed it would be impossible for a black candidate in the United Kingdom to rise to the top in politics because of
institutional racism
Institutional racism, also known as systemic racism, is a form of racism that is embedded in the laws and regulations of a society or an organization. It manifests as discrimination in areas such as criminal justice, employment, housing, health ...
within the
Labour Party, saying:
If Barack Obama had lived here I would be very surprised if even somebody as brilliant as him would have been able to break through the institutional stranglehold that there is on power within the Labour party.
The comments received support and criticism from members of ethnic communities in the UK.
Honours
Phillips was appointed
Officer of the Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations,
and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...
(OBE) in the
1999 New Year Honours for services to broadcast journalism.
He received a
knighthood
A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state (including the Pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood finds origins in the Gr ...
in the
2022 New Year Honours in recognition of his services to equality and human rights.
Personal life
Phillips married Asha Bhownagary, a
Parsi
Parsis () or Parsees are an ethnoreligious group of the Indian subcontinent adhering to Zoroastrianism. They are descended from Persians who migrated to Medieval India during and after the Arab conquest of Iran (part of the early Muslim conq ...
child psychotherapist with
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
n ancestry, in 1981 and they had two daughters, one of whom, Sushila, died in April 2021 due to
anorexia
Anorexia nervosa, often referred to simply as anorexia, is an eating disorder characterized by low weight, food restriction, body image disturbance, fear of gaining weight, and an overpowering desire to be thin. ''Anorexia'' is a term of Gre ...
.
References
External links
Official website
Further reading
BBC website profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Phillips, Trevor
1953 births
Living people
Alumni of Imperial College London
Associates of the Royal College of Science
Black British politicians
Black British writers
British broadcasters
Commissioners for Racial Equality
English people of Guyanese descent
English television producers
Fellows of the Royal Institute of Chemistry
John Lewis Partnership people
Knights Bachelor
Labour Members of the London Assembly
Officers of the Order of the British Empire
People from Wood Green
Presidents of the National Union of Students (United Kingdom)