At least a half-dozen major inquiries in the past two decades have examined various aspects of race in Britain. All of them found evidence of institutional racism, including four since 2017.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities, launched after the Black Lives Matter protests last year, begs to differ. Its controversial conclusions in a report published last week say that while it’s too early to declare Britain a "post-racial society,” arguments of institutional racism are overblown.

Overall, it says, the U.K. is pretty much best in class when it comes to White-majority countries around the world. (One fact: The difference in educational attainment between Black and White pupils is eight times smaller in Britain than in the U.S.) That message of "cheer up, things are better than you think” is unlikely to be the comfort the government hopes.