Trevor Phillips

Trevor Phillips in 2010

Sir Mark Trevor Phillips OBE (born 31 December 1953) is a British broadcaster who has formerly worked at a senior level in human rights organisations. He was born in London to Guyanese parents and was elected President of the National Union of Students from 1978 to 1980. During the 1980s and 1990s, he worked as a television journalist in London. He was elected to the London Assembly in 2000 and was its Chair, but stood down in 2003 when appointed to chair the Commission for Racial Equality. In 2006, he was named as Chair of the Commission for Equalities and Human Rights, a merged equalities governmental body. In June 2026, he was appointed by CBS News as their senior global affairs correspondent, and will work in the United States.

Quotes

2004–2016

• Most liberal-minded folk would like to think that since they are not hostile to people of a different race, racism is a disease of the uneducated, unenlightened and socially backward - football hooligans, British National Party supporters, policemen. You could call this the Bad Guy Theory.
  But the Bad Guy Theory does not explain why Indian-heritage children do nearly twice as well as Pakistani-heritage children at GCSE. If the difference were simply a matter of teacher attitudes you would have to believe that most British teachers were bigoted — and that their prejudice was directed solely at the Pakistani pupils and never at their Indian classmates. Both suggestions defy common sense.
  • "Face facts: race inequality persists", The Times (29 October 2004).

• For a long time, I too thought that Europe’s Muslims would become like previous waves of migrants, gradually abandoning their ancestral ways, wearing their religious and cultural baggage lightly, and gradually blending into Britain’s diverse identity landscape. I should have known better.
  • "What do British Muslims really think?",The Sunday Times, (10 April 2016).

2026–present

• There's no suggestion that Lord Mandelson has done anything unlawful.
  But I would claim the friend's privilege to tell Peter that he has been, at best naive and foolish, at worst greedy and duplicitous.
  Whatever is true as far as politics and public office are concerned, for Peter Mandelson, this is the end.
• The question now is whether the price of his misjudgement is to be paid only by the man himself, or whether those who trusted him and elevated him to the peerage, and to one of the highest diplomatic posts available, should also share in his ignominy.
  • From his monologue at the beginning of Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips on Sky News "Mandelson 'has no recollection' of Epstein giving him $75,000", Sky News (1 February 2026).
  • A release of several million Epstein files by the United States Department of Justice on 30 January, including many emails exchanged between Jeffrey Epstein and the peer, had raised questions about the conduct and ethics of Lord Mandelson.

• [On the drafting of the Equality Act 2010] It never occurred to us for one second that anybody would think of sex as anything other than biologically determined [...] It was an oversight on our part that you would get the rise of a movement based in fantasy. We never imagined that there would be people peddling the fantasy that you can just make up what sex you are. And it never occurred to me that people who make decisions on these things would be engulfed by this fantasy.
  The problem is that the grown-ups in the room have turned into cowards, and they are all running away from the fantasists. [...] When I was a student, one of the things we fought for was that women could operate independently of men. Now, according to this new fantasy world, the one thing women cannot do is decide when they want to be separate from men. It's not just outrageous, it’s insane.
  • "Trevor Phillips: 'London liberals are only now realising how hated they are in Britain'", The Telegraph (2 August 2026).
  • Phillips is indirectly referring to issues raised before and after the For Women Scotland Ltd v The Scottish Ministers judgement of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom.