Searchlight was saddened to hear of the recent death of Shreela Flather, Baroness Flather at the age of 89. She was veteran race relations campaigner and pioneer – the first Asian woman to receive a peerage and one of the first people from an ethnic minority to sit in the House of Lords, originally as a Conservative and later as a crossbencher.

Whilst occasionally a controversial figure, she was a firm supporter of Searchlight, writing in 2014 that “Those of us who have been involved in race relations from the earliest days know the work of this magazine and have valued it over a long period of time….It has done substantial good identifying the racist and fascist groups and also helping those who want to counteract the propaganda with information and assistance.”

We send our condolences to her son, Paul, also a friend of the magazine, and the rest of her family.