31/05/2026
One community …One Race - The Human Race 💓💓
Editorial: Racism Has No Place in Pembrokeshire, and Silence Is Starting to Look Like Permission
Pembrokeshire likes to tell itself it is a welcoming place. A county of coast, community, chapels, clubs, local businesses, school gates, sports teams and familiar faces. We pride ourselves on helping when storms hit, fundraising when families struggle, and turning up when someone needs us.
But let’s be honest. That version of Pembrokeshire only means something if it applies to everyone.
Not just people who were born here. Not just people with the “right” surname. Not just people who look, speak, worship, work or live in a way that makes others comfortable.
Everyone.
Racism is not always a man shouting abuse in the street. Sometimes it is dressed up as “banter”. Sometimes it appears in Facebook comments under a local news story. Sometimes it is the sneer about “outsiders”, the lazy slur in the pub, the assumption that someone does not belong, the customer who thinks a shop worker, taxi driver, nurse, teacher, carer or council officer is fair game because of their colour, nationality, accent, religion or background.
And sometimes, perhaps most dangerously, it is the silence of people who know better.
That silence has become part of the problem.
Across England and Wales, race remains the largest recorded hate crime strand. Home Office figures for the year ending March 2025 recorded 137,550 hate crimes in total, with race hate crimes increasing by 6% and religious hate crimes increasing by 3%. These are not abstract numbers from somewhere else. They are the climate in which our own communities live and breathe.
Closer to home, Dyfed-Powys Police confirmed through a 2026 disclosure that there were 237 recorded crimes in 2025 with a racial “Hate Crime” indicator across the force area. That covers the wider Dyfed-Powys patch, not Pembrokeshire alone, but anyone pretending this is not a West Wales issue is kidding themselves.
The law is also clear. Under the Equality Act 2010, race includes colour, nationality, citizenship, ethnic origins and national origins. That means racism is not limited to one narrow idea of skin colour. It includes hostility or unfair treatment linked to where someone is from, where people assume they are from, or the group they are perceived to belong to.
So no, “I didn’t mean it like that” is not a magic spell. It does not make the harm disappear.
Pembrokeshire cannot call itself a decent community while letting racism hide behind humour, heritage, frustration, politics or “free speech”. Free speech gives people the right to debate difficult issues. It does not give them a free pass to target people because of race, religion, nationality or ethnicity.
That distinction matters.
You can discuss housing pressure without blaming migrants. You can discuss crime without smearing entire communities. You can discuss public services without attacking people because they are Polish, Black, Asian, Muslim, Jewish, Roma, Irish Traveller, English, Welsh, foreign-born or simply “not from round here”. You can be angry about politics without making your neighbour the punchbag.
And if you cannot make your point without dragging race into it, maybe your point was rotten to begin with.
Wales has already committed to becoming an anti-racist nation by 2030 through the Welsh Government’s Anti-racist Wales Action Plan. The refreshed plan, published in 2024, puts the focus on leadership, cultural change and measurable action, not just nice words stuck on a poster in reception.
Pembrokeshire County Council’s own Strategic Equality Plan for 2024-28 includes an objective that members and employees should actively promote and facilitate a culture of inclusion. Its 2024-25 annual report also includes an anti-racist action plan update. That matters because anti-racism cannot just be something said in Cardiff Bay. It has to mean something in Haverfordwest, Milford Haven, Pembroke Dock, Fishguard, Tenby, Narberth, Crymych and every village in between.
But plans do not change a community unless people do.
The real test is not what organisations say when they are writing a strategy. The real test is what happens when racism appears in the room.
When someone makes a racist joke, who challenges it?
When a local Facebook thread turns ugly, who moderates it?
When a worker is abused by a customer, does the business back the worker or protect the takings?
When a child is targeted in school, is it dealt with properly or quietly minimised?
When someone reports racism, are they supported, or are they treated as the troublemaker?
That last one is crucial. Too often, the person who objects to racism is painted as the one “causing division”. What nonsense. Racism causes division. Calling it out simply turns the lights on.
And yes, we should call it out.
Call out racist comments. Call out coded language. Call out the cowardice of people who share poisonous nonsense online and then pretend they were “just asking questions”. Call out the pub philosopher who has somehow done his “own research” but cannot manage basic human decency. Call out organisations that say they have policies but fail to act when those policies are tested.
But let’s be clear about what “calling out” should mean.
It should mean evidence. Screenshots. Dates. Reports. Fair process. Firm moderation. Proper complaints. Police involvement where criminal thresholds may be met. It should not mean rumours, pile-ons, false allegations or doxxing. If we want higher standards, we have to live by them too.
There is also support available. In Wales, hate crime can be reported to police by calling 999 in an emergency or 101 in a non-emergency. The Wales Hate Support Centre, run by Victim Support, also allows people to report hate crime directly and confidentially, including online or by phone on 0300 30 31 982.
This is important because racism is underreported. Many people do not report it because they think nothing will happen, because they fear backlash, or because they have grown tired of being told to “rise above it”. Rising above it is not a community safety strategy. It is just leaving people to carry the weight alone.
Pembrokeshire’s local pages, community groups, clubs, schools, workplaces, taxis, shops, pubs and public bodies all have a role here. If you run a Facebook group, moderate it properly. If you run a business, protect your staff. If you lead a club, set standards. If you are an elected member, choose your words carefully. If you are a bystander, do not be wallpaper.
Because here is the uncomfortable truth: racists rarely believe they are the minority when everyone around them stays quiet.
Silence emboldens them.
A community does not become racist only when the loudest person says something vile. It becomes racist when everyone else decides it is easier to let it pass.
Pembrokeshire is better than that, or at least it should be.
Being proud of where we live should not mean being suspicious of everyone who arrives, works, studies, worships, rents, buys, raises children or builds a life here. Local pride should not be a locked gate. It should be a standard of behaviour.
So yes, let’s call them out.
Call out the slurs. Call out the stereotypes. Call out the “banter”. Call out the comment sections that turn into open drains. Call out the people who think racism is only racism when it comes with a burning cross and a bedsheet. This is not America in a history book. This is Wales, now, and the problem looks like whatever form it takes in front of us.
Pembrokeshire does not need performative outrage. It needs backbone.
It needs people willing to say, plainly and without apology: not here, not in our name, not in our community.
Because if everyone belongs, racism has nowhere to hide.
And if racism still feels comfortable here, then we have work to do. fans
