Between April 15 and 21, the director of the Caucasus Islamic Research Center, Shota Apkhaidze, published posts about the employment of ethnic minorities in the British police. According to Apkhaidze, “White Britons are no longer being hired in law enforcement,” and the majority of employees in the country’s law enforcement agencies and special forces are Asian, with Black people ranking second in numbers, while only a small number of white individuals are employed in these institutions.
The information disseminated by Shota Apkhaidze about the employment of ethnic minorities in the British police is false: 1) It is not true that “White Britons” are no longer hired in the British police. The information is being circulated based on an article from The Telegraph, which claims that discrimination against white people occurs in the Yorkshire Police Department. However, both the mayor of Yorkshire and the police department have denied this; 2) The claim that most employees in the British police are Asian is disinformation. According to data from the UK government, only about 4% of employees are Asian, around 8% identify as members of ethnic minorities, and over 80% of employees are white.
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White People Are Still Being Hired by Yorkshire Police
Shota Apkhaidze’s post includes a fragment of a program on British TV channel GB News, where a journalist discusses alleged racist practices against white individuals and positive discrimination in the Yorkshire Police. According to the host, white people are no longer hired by the Yorkshire Police. This claim was originally spread by The Telegraph, which reported that the West Yorkshire Police Department had temporarily blocked applications from white individuals in an effort to promote diversity. The article was based on statements from a whistleblower. The media outlet stated that Black and East Asian applicants were prioritized because they were “underrepresented” in the entity. It is worth noting that positive discrimination is illegal in the UK labor market; however, several legal provisions allow for the promotion of minority groups.
The Yorkshire Police responded to the article from The Telegraph. According to their statement, they did not restrict white Britons from participating in the hiring process. They opened the application window earlier for underrepresented minorities, a practice permitted under the Equality Act as a form of positive action. The statement explains that 23% of Yorkshire’s population identify themselves as part of an ethnic minority, while this figure is only around 9% within the police force. Britons can also apply once the main recruitment window opens. The statement clarifies that this initiative aims to attract individuals from underrepresented groups, but that no bias will occur in later stages of the selection process. The statement reads:
“Positive Action allows people from under-represented groups who express an interest in joining the force to complete an application, which is then held on file until a recruitment window is opened. No interviews are held until the window is officially opened to all candidates. Enabling people from under-represented groups to apply early does not give them an advantage in the application process; it simply provides us with more opportunity to attract talent from this pool of applicants.”
The city’s mayor also rejected the claim of alleged discrimination within Yorkshire Police. He told the BBC that there is no discrimination against white applicants and that by opening the recruitment window earlier for underrepresented groups, the police are merely broadening the pool of candidates, and ultimately, the best candidate will be hired.
The claim that white applicants are no longer hired by Yorkshire Police has also been fact-checked by Reuters.
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Asians Represent the Majority in the British Police
The claim that Asians represent the largest ethnic group in the British police is false. Shota Apkhaidze uses a screenshot as his source, which reads that police officers and staff in England and Wales self-identify their ethnicity based on five broad categories: Asian, black, mixed ethnicity, white, and other. It is important to note that this list is not ranked by size, and the fact that “Asian” appears first is purely coincidental.
Shota Apkhaidze references a 2023 document published by the UK government on police personnel. The document summarizes data from 2022 surveys and categorizes employees by ethnic background. According to the report, 91.9% of police officers in Britain are white (with no further breakdown within the white category), 3.7% are Asian, 1.3% are black, 2.5% are of mixed ethnicity, and 0.7% fall into none of the listed categories. Out of a total of 136,274 police officers in Britain, 125,221 are white.
The same, but more detailed, report also states that across all police positions, white individuals make up at least 87% of the workforce (Diversity, Figure 5.6).
A more recent study, covering data on police personnel as of March 31, 2024, shows only slight changes in the number of employees from ethnic minority backgrounds. While the number of minority employees in all of the positions listed has increased by several percent, it is still well below the number of white employees.
About the Source:
False claims shared by Shota Apkhaidze on social media have been fact-checked multiple times by Myth Detector. In recent years, Apkhaidze has also spread disinformation about protests in Georgia through Russian media. He is also frequently cited by Kremlin propaganda media.
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