Racists, racists, everywhere...

...or so Keith Vaz does think.

Really, I am starting to wonder whether there is any profession, institution, or organisation which is safe from unjustified and unevidenced accusations of "racism". Apart from organisations set up solely for the benefit of non-whites, of course. The latest "racist" organisation, as identified by Keith Vaz and other race hustlers, is the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA).

The SRA's crime is that they have investigated and closed down a disproportionately large number of black and Asian solicitors' practices. Reportedly, 62% of solicitors investigated by the SRA in 2006 were non-white. This prompted complaints and threats from the Association of Muslim Lawyers (AML) and the Society of Black Lawyers (SBL), and Vaz, himself a former third-rate solicitor of sorts, has now followed suit, asking the justice secretary to investigate the practices, not of the solicitors who are being found to have committed breaches of conduct, but of the regulatory body which is making these findings.

Now, one would expect Vaz, and his friends in the AML and the SBL, to have produced some evidence of actual discrimination taking place, before they started throwing accusations of racism around. However, they have completely failed to do this. Rather, they base their claim that there is widespread racism solely on the fact that a high number of non-white solicitors are being investigated. As the AML's Mahmud al-Rashid put it: "the figures show there must be discrimination at the SRA".

No, they don't show that. Rather, they show that a disproportionately high number of non-white solicitors are being found guilty of incompetence or dodgy dealing by an impartial tribunal. Now, Vaz, the AML, and the SBL may dispute that the SRA is an impartial tribunal, but their arguments are entirely circular, consisting as they do solely in the fact that the SRA is investigating a high number of non-white solicitors, therefore it is racist, therefore the fact that it is investigating a disproportionate number of non-whites is down to discrimination, therefore it is not an impartial tribunal. In the absence of any actual evidence showing discrimination, this argument simply does not stand up. As lawyers, those kicking up a fuss here ought to be able to work that out for themselves. As race hustlers, however, they clearly have no need of such bigoted and Eurocentric things as logic and reason.

Anyway, as I was saying, all that the SRA's investigation really shows is that non-white solicitors are disproportionately likely to be found to be incompetent or ethically dubious. Now, in the circumstances, I would suggest that it would behove both the AML and the SBL to do a bit of soul-searching, and wonder why it is that their members are disproportionately useless or bent. Perhaps it's down to the fact that a lot of those specifically black and Asian law firms that are getting closed down are restricting their recruitment to blacks and Asians (and, indeed, to those blacks and Asians who are either committed race hustlers, or who are unable to get jobs at proper firms), and, in consequence of this severely restricted recruitment policy, are recruiting people of a lower than average standard. Maybe there are other reasons for the discrepancy. But in any event, the SBL and the AML would do well to consider those other reasons, and possibly to consider what they can do to help their members improve their, apparently deficient, professional standards, before they start accusing others of being at fault. Of course, this is never going to happen. Being race hustlers, they adhere to the race hustler's mantra, that whenever a non-white does anything wrong, the first (and, indeed, the only) response should be to scream "racist" at the nearest white person, until they cave in and submit to the race hustler's demands. It is to be hoped that the SRA, and the Law Society, of which it is part, will stand their ground.