Trevor Phillips’s youngest sister rang him in tears from America at 6.15am on Tuesday, saying: “I just voted. I just voted.” Ten hours later, his elder sister telephoned after she had cast her ballot for Barack Obama as well. “I had to tell her to stop crying too,” he said. It is clear that the head of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, who went to school in Guyana and whose wife is Indian, was moved by the election of the 44th President of the United States. He watched the results come in at the Operation Black Vote party in London: “That was where the brethren and sisters had gathered, so it was quite cool.

“This is the first time that a black person has seriously had an opportunity. It is not that you couldn’t identify with John F. Kennedy or Bill Clinton, but for most of my lifetime there has not been a possibility for a black politician to be anything other than an insurgent.”

Britain’s most prominent black campaigner is, however, angry that the election has all been about race. “One of the things that has irritated the hell out of me in the last 48 hours has been all the stuff about Barack Obama being the first black President. It’s a deep insult to the guy. He’s a once-in-a-lifetime political phenomenon, a rock star, a single political lightning strike. It’s not that he’s black.”

People should not reduce him to the colour of his skin. “We would never do that with a white politician. We didn’t reduce Bill Clinton to a good old boy from Arkansas. Barack Obama has rewritten the rules of politics: someone with only two years of experience can’t get to be the candidate, you can’t beat the Clinton machine, you can’t make that much money, you can’t make young people vote. That’s not contingent on his race.”

It is the symbolism that counts in his view. “Americans want to feel better about themselves and voting for someone who is not white makes them feel better. For older Americans it is atonement for slavery but more significantly for segregation. For younger Americans he is the coolest person on the planet.”

In fact, Mr Phillips thinks the reason that Mr Obama had such wide appeal was not because he was black but because he was of mixed race. “The central message Obama has brought is one of reconciliation. He has a black family and a white family, he is comfortable on both sides of the line, he is the President who in his own story tells us we can live together. He is happy in Kenya and Kansas; it puts everyone who tries to define themselves by race to shame.”

Talk of a “postracial world” is, in his view, rubbish. “This guy walks on water, he is a miracle, he does things none of us thought could be done in politics – but don’t expect him to end war and racial discrimination, give everyone a home and engender love and peace by Christmas,” he said.

“The expectations are ludicrous. One of the reasons I have a slight worry about people’s obsession with him being the first black President is that I have a horrible feeling that the minute things go wrong the word betrayal will quickly come out.”

The problem, according to Mr Phillips, is that black and white Americans have different expectations. “If he spends money on the cities it will benefit black Americans more than white Americans, if he puts resources into rust belt industries then the reaction might go the other way.”

Despite this week’s result, America was still divided on racial lines. “Blacks still live where other blacks live, even the black millionaires live in gated communities for black millionaires. Obama cannot make people live together, but because of his personal story he can make people feel it is OK to cross the colour divide.”

Britain, he believes, is less racially divided than America. “Here it’s more about class. It is about culture, a different way of life and speaking. The Muslim community occupies the space that black Americans have in the United States. If you asked British voters whether you could have a Muslim prime minister their mouths would drop open, but not with a black one.”

The public in this country would, he believes, embrace a black leader but the system would prevent it happening. “Here, the problem is not the electorate, the problem is the machine.” It was no coincidence that there were only 15 ethnic-minority MPs, he said. “The parties and the unions and the think-tanks are all very happy to sign up to the general idea of advancing the cause of minorities but in practice they would like somebody else to do the business. It’s institutional racism.”

The Conservatives had done better than Labour at increasing the number of black and Asian candidates. “They are less democratic. They are happier to impose candidates on the local parties.” Labour was too in hock to “the trade unions, the socialist societies, the left intelligentsia, and until you get them to accept that they have got a responsibility to do something it is almost impossible for the party leadership to make progress”.

I t would, he thinks, have been impossible for Mr Obama to become prime minister in this country. “If Barack Obama had lived here I would be very surprised if even somebody as brilliant as him would have been able to break through the institutional stranglehold on power within the Labour Party.”

He is reluctant to endorse all-black shortlists because he thinks it would be difficult to define “black” or to decide where they should be imposed. In his view it would be better for parties to introduce a special fund to help potential ethnic-minority candidates to find a seat. “Any positive action has to be based on giving people who are already competent a bit of an edge.”

The Obama victory will, in his view, have as great an impact in Asia and Africa as in Atlanta. “When the G8 meets, the four most important people in the room will be the President of China, the Prime Minister of India, the Prime Minister of Japan and Barack Obama – not one of them is white. It will be the first time we’ve seen that on our television screens. That will be a huge psychological shift for all sorts of people.”

The President-elect will be a role model for millions. Mr Phillips remembers going as a young boy to the sorting office where his father, a postman, worked. “Most of the guys who worked on the floor were black, most of the supervisors were white. My father introduced me to one of the ‘governors’. What he meant was, ‘I’m never going to be that, you’ll probably never be that’. The assumption was that we’d be the guys in uniform.”

The former television presenter is boss class now. In 1999 he was appointed OBE by his friend Tony Blair. Peter Mandelson was best man at his wedding. As head of the Equality Commission, he has a budget of £70 million. But he said: “I am in a very unusual position for a black person.”

The man who has perhaps come closest to being Britain’s Obama – he was the first black President of the National Union of Students and flirted with becoming Labour’s candidate for Mayor of London – seems to have given up his ambition for elected office. “Some of us are born to be John the Baptist,” he said.

He will be keeping a close eye on the Chosen One across the water. “Obama may turn out to be the Messiah, but give the guy a chance to turn the water into wine before we decide. When I first went into politics, my mother told me there was a pretty much unfailing history of black leadership going wrong. With one exception – Nelson Mandela – people are lauded, then brought down. Even Martin Luther King was attacked for coming out against the Vietnam War, Muhammad Ali was turned into a black Muslim monster when he refused the draft. The history of black men in leadership is not a promising one. Barack Obama has so far broken every rule and what I am hoping is that he will break my mother’s rule that black men are eventually made to fail.”

LIFE AND TIMES

Born December 31, 1953

Education Queen’s College Boys’ School, Guyana; Imperial College, London University

Job Head of Equality and Human Rights Commission

Career Researcher and reporter on London Weekend Television before becoming editor and presenter of the London Programme in 1980. Became head of current affairs at LWT in 1987. Member of London Assembly from 2000 to 2003. Chaired Commission of Racial Equality before getting current job in 2006

Family Married to Asha Bhownagary, two daughters

QUCIK FIRE

America or Europe? America
Martin Luther King or Nelson Mandela? Martin Luther King
P Diddy or Pavarotti? Pavarotti
Ballet or football? Football
Champagne or Chablis? Champagne
Zadie Smith or Monica Ali? Monica Ali