How is Cameron so confidently treading Labour ground on equality?

David Cameron is shameless. He cleverly steals Labour’s message on equality, while pushing through cuts that increase inequality and threatens anyone who stands in his way.

This week the PM continued the message of his speech to Conservative Party conference; in an article on The Guardian (not exactly David Cameron’s native newspaper home) he claimed that the Tories are the party of equality. He wrote brazenly and, of course, dishonestly, about racial inequality; recognising that racism still exists. For many of us, this is no revelation but it’s certainly new hearing this come from a Conservative Prime Minister. To prove his point, he cited evidence that proves black applicants are discriminated against when they’re applying to university and pledged to make applications name-blind to deal with racial bias.

This is undoubtedly a clever strategy. But Cameron is merely paying lip service to the idea of equality – whether along the lines of race, gender, age, disability or sexuality. Take racism. The Conservatives may well be making university applications name-blind but they’re ignoring the multitude of ways BAME people are discriminated against. They preside over an economic system that disadvantages people of colour; alongside women and disabled people they suffer disproportionately under the hammer of austerity.

This inequality comes from old, racist power structures that the Tories aren’t doing anything to challenge. The Conservatives boast about their commitment to racial equality while ignoring that people of colour aren’t treated fairly in application processes because of negative stereotypes their policies and words reinforce. They stoked anti-Muslim sentiment in the so-called Trojan horse scandal, slashed the budget for Black History Month and extended the Islamophobic Prevent programme. Glance at the curriculum and you’ll see Eurocentric education is privileged, the horrors of Empire are skated over and there’s a dearth of black role models.

Cameron has pushed hard to make ill-defined, insidious “British values” a central concept in schools. He’s all for the idea of “tolerance” (but not “passive tolerance”) in the classroom, which essentially means reluctantly putting up with people who are different from you: keeping dividing lines in place but making them a little less obvious.

And although the PM claims to celebrate difference, he’s conveniently forgotten that in July he called migrants a “swarm”; unmistakably a xenophobic term rooted in racial prejudice. Not long after this, he responded to the death of a migrant man crushed by a lorry in Calais by lamenting the delays this could cause for British holidaymakers. He let his mask slip.

Ultimately, if the Tories really wanted equality, they’d need to overturn their whole ideological system, stop relying on lazy stereotypes and put an end to scapegoating the poorest in society. None of which they’re in danger of doing any time soon.

But, they’re getting away with this equality rhetoric all too easily. They’ve had no problem promoting BME MPs to senior positions in the party; the likes of Sajid Javid and Priti Patel are regularly brought out for media performances. Although representation by no means begets equality – for that you really need to move away from capitalism – it certainly helps to create a convincing narrative. Labour’s all-white leadership contests over the summer showed the party’s glaring flaws.

This is where the Labour’s new era comes in. Long heralded as the party for equality, they now have a leader who dares speak about the double discrimination women of colour face – on the basis of both gender and race – but they need to be shouting this from the rooftops. Labour need to develop innovative policies to tackle the racism that’s woven into British society, and put together a slick narrative.

It’s disturbing that Cameron is so confidently treading on Labour’s ground. The party can’t simply give way – they need to focus, develop their own message and expose Cameron’s for exactly what it is: a lie.