The fallacy of an anti-racist police force

This article unpacks the Metropolitan Police’s current aim to rebrand itself as an ‘anti-racist organisation’ via its London Race Action Plan , published following Louise Casey’s review into its toxic institutional culture. The author argues that this move reflects a broader neoliberal drive to recast the machinery of structural racism as anti-racist and to create public doubt over what constitutes anti-racism, amid a ‘post-race’ mythology in profound crisis. He shows that a cultural tug-of-war over anti-racism, coupled with Casey’s liberal framing of modern policing as public service, have prompted the Metropolitan Police to advance claims of impartiality by committing to ‘anti-racist service’ provision. With its vision of a police force that ‘represents’, ‘respects’, ‘involves’ and ‘protects’ black communities, the London Race Action Plan marks its ‘anti-racist’ ambition. This removal of anti-racism from its community-based radical foundations puts the onus on grassroots movements to reclaim anti-racism as a transformative endeavour.