Gove appoints ‘levelling up’ adviser who suggested non-white Britons not ‘indigenous’

Michael Gove has appointed Paul Collier, a controversial professor who suggested non-white, British-born people are not “indigenous”, to advise him on the government’s levelling-up strategy. 

Mr Collier has claimed that immigration has made “the indigenous British” a “minority” in London. 

The 72-year-old is a development economist at Oxford University’s Blavatnik’s School of Government.

In one TV interview, he also argued immigrants have led to Britons leaving the capital, asking: “Is London such a great success for the indigenous population?”

“Something rather drastic has happened to the indigenous population in London … I can think of no other major city where the indigenous population has more than halved”.

The former chair of the Conservative Muslim Forum has attacked the appointment as “deplorable”. 

And Sajjad Karim, a former Tory MEP, criticised the levelling up policy moving into “a completely new place away from development”, adding: “Identity politics playing out as part of levelling up is not just opportunistic, but dangerous”.

The appointment accompanied the publication of the long-delayed blueprint to level up the country .