It was a casual comment by a friend, whose mother was Canadian. Around 44,090 people died and I knew nothing about it. The Second World War drew on the British Empire and Dominions for people, food, raw materials, and even interest-free loans.

Almost 6,000 Caribbean people served in the Royal Air Force (RAF). There were 2.5 million Indian citizens in uniform during the war, alongside one million Canadians and just under one million Australians.

The Runnymede Trust education resource, Our Migration Story, a project co-produced with the universities of Manchester and Cambridge, shares the lesser-known story of a lumberjack from Belize (formerly know as British Honduras), who had to withstand the Scottish winter in a poorly-made hut. About 700 lumberjacks were recruited to work in forests across Scotland.

Britain did not stand alone. Although what is covered in classrooms and how it is taught is largely dependent on the discretion of schools, we have gotten better at public commemoration. A war memorial to African-Caribbean soldiers was unveiled in 2017.

The RAF Museum and Black Cultural Archives curated the exhibition Pilots of the Caribbean that ran in 2013. It was very informative and I thoroughly enjoyed my visit. But these positive steps have not been matched by reflection at the national level. As a country, we still excel at forgetting when the story isn’t so positive.

Today is the 80th anniversary of the start of the Second World War, and anniversaries are by their very nature commemorative. But they should also trigger reflection of the past that’s accurate and honest. Even when we came together to fight an enemy we shared, we were fractured along 400 years old fault lines.

During the war, Britain enforced a colour bar in the British armed forces, which restricted serving to men of ‘pure European descent’ only. The same rules applied to the RAF and Royal Navy.

There were some exceptions for the RAF but promotion to officer rank was not allowed. The bar was relaxed, but to protect Britain’s reputation from accusations of hypocrisy – fighting fascism in Germany and Italy whilst upholding segregation at home was not a good look.

These ideas of racial superiority did not disappear after the war was won. When we tell an incomplete national story that erases the very real racism in our past, it makes it more difficult to challenge in the present. We paper over the cracks with nice narratives that are prone to rupture.

Research by NatCen and The Runnymede Trust found that when asked whether ‘some races or ethnic groups are born less intelligent,’ 18% of UK respondents said yes. That’s nearly one in five people. When asked whether ‘some races or ethnic groups are born harder working’, this goes up to 44% of respondents. This is not a survey from 1945 – it’s from 2017.

Racist beliefs still blight us. It’s not all doom and gloom. Polling by charity Hope Not Hate found that 76% of 18-24 year olds feel diversity is integral to British culture. This goes down to less than half of those aged 65 and over. Comfort with different cultures does not preclude racism but it does signal some positive change.

We should use the 80th anniversary since the start of the war to be honest about the past, celebrate the good and the bad, and strive to be better. As we make the case for in the TIDE-Runnymede report, Teaching Migration, Belonging, and Empire, we need a deep-dive into how the history of Empire is taught and adequate support for teachers to tackle what can be tricky topics.

Finally, we should use this anniversary to inspire a renewed commitment to fighting the far right and hate on our home turf. The worst ever rise in recorded hate crime followed the Brexit vote in 2016 as did a surge in far-right. In 2019, the charity Hope Not Hate foiled a neo-Nazi plot to murder an MP. This should not be a new norm. We fought it abroad, so let’s fight it at home.