From: fedora@fea.st   
      
   On Thu, 19 Feb 2026 11:02:24 +0000, Julian    
   wrote:   
      
   >If the Equality Act 2010 made discrimination illegal, then why we have   
   >seen the rise of persistent and widespread discrimination against white   
   >males across the public and private sectors?   
      
   Equality too.  stopstopstopstop.  You are making me feel faint.  Pity   
   the poor white males.   
      
   >Today, some form or other of anti-white social engineering can be found   
   >in practically any institution you care to name. Famously in 2023, the   
   >RAF, in a bid to make ‘the few’ even fewer, discriminated against 31   
   >‘useless white male pilots’ in a recruitment scheme. But we can add the   
   >NHS, universities, all manner of coveted white-collar grad schemes and   
   >internships, the Premier League, GCHQ and local councils. Or just take   
   >what we’ve seen in the police. In 2024, three white officers were passed   
   >over for promotion by Thames Valley Police because of their race; last   
   >year, West Yorkshire Police temporarily blocked applications from white   
   >candidates in a diversity drive; only last month, it emerged that two   
   >male officers had been fired from a team by Suffolk Police on the   
   >grounds of ‘operational reasons linked to gender balance’.   
   >   
   >It seems that in multicultural Britain, some ‘protected characteristics’   
   >are more protected than others.   
   >   
   >It is welcome news, then, that Reform has this week announced plans to   
   >scrap the Equality Act on ‘day one’. Suella Braverman, unveiled on   
   >Monday as Reform’s new shadow education, skills and equalities   
   >secretary, said Britain is being ‘ripped apart by diversity, equality   
   >and inclusion’.   
   >   
   >In her new brief, the former Conservative home secretary will take aim   
   >at the equalities state and ‘build a country defined by meritocracy not   
   >tokenism’. In schools, this will mean a ‘patriotic, balanced   
   >curriculum’, where in particular Braverman has pledged to root out   
   >transgender ideology in the classroom, including banning the so-called   
   >‘social transitioning’ of pupils. She also fired a warning shot at   
   >universities, some which she says have ‘descended into hotbeds of cancel   
   >culture [and] anti-Semitism’, rely on too heavily foreign students, and   
   >‘keep conning young people into worthless degrees’.   
   >   
   >This is undoubtedly red meat for the base – Braverman’s Equality Act   
   >proposals prompted the loudest cheers at Monday’s London press   
   >conference – but it is important to be maximalist in principle. Previous   
   >attempts from the right to take aim at the equalities bureaucracy, most   
   >recently spearheaded by Kemi Badenoch as equalities minister, have   
   >misfired by failing to address the problem at its philosophical root.   
   >The problem is not just that EDI initiatives are costly make-work   
   >schemes with little evidence base to them – it’s that the racial   
   >gerrymandering they are trying to achieve is itself a bad idea.   
   >   
   >‘The problem with the Equality Act is not poor implementation’, explains   
   >Alka Sehgal Cuthbert, director of campaign group Don’t Divide Us, ‘It is   
   >that it embeds identity politics.’ Indeed, it was always telling that   
   >despite Mrs Badenoch’s reputation as an anti-woke firebrand, presided   
   >over the diversity bureaucracy as equalities minister – and created a   
   >good deal more of it. Braverman, meanwhile, now in teal, wants to   
   >abolish the equalities brief altogether.   
   >   
   >There are important reasons the Equality Act has to be changed. For one   
   >thing, it has encouraged untold vexatious complaints in the workplace. A   
   >recent report by Don’t Divide Us found a seven-fold increase in   
   >employment discrimination claims around race between 2016-17 to 2023-24,   
   >despite just 5 per cent of claims being successful over the whole   
   >period. The Act’s focus on personal identity and victimhood encouraged a   
   >grievance culture, it found, which far from easing racial tensions was   
   >only exacerbating them further.   
   >   
   >In particular, it is the Act’s Public Sector Equality Duty and ‘positive   
   >action’ wheezes which have made it a vehicle for systematic   
   >discrimination against less politically favoured groups – whites and   
   >men. While the Act outlaws ‘positive discrimination’, where minorities   
   >are explicitly hired preferentially, it doesn’t outlaw ‘positive   
   >action’, where minority groups get special outreach programmes, which   
   >we’re supposed to think is fair and unobjectionable. But as those   
   >would-be airmen know, this is really a distinction without a difference.   
   >If you’re giving a leg-up to some groups to increase ‘diversity’, you’re   
   >not giving them to others. ‘Institutions should be held accountable for   
   >treating people fairly rather than hitting artificial demographic   
   >targets’, says James Orr, Reform’s new head of policy.   
   >   
   >Necessary as it is, Reform’s anti ‘equalities’ crusade is sure to rile   
   >the left. An unsubtle Guardian headline on the press conference   
   >anticipates the line of attack: ‘Farage insults female reporter as   
   >Braverman says Reform UK wants to scrap Equality Act.’ On Monday’s   
   >Newsnight,a testy Victoria Derbyshire repeatedly grilled new shadow home   
   >secretary Zia Yusuf over which particular discrimination protections   
   >Reform was looking to scrap. In reality, though, while critics will no   
   >doubt try to paint Equality Act reform as extreme, the policy hits a   
   >healthy middle ground. Orr explains: ‘The Equality Act consolidated   
   >pre-existing legislation on disability, sex and race discrimination.   
   >Reform UK supports the predecessor legislation and unequivocally opposes   
   >discrimination based on protected characteristics.’   
   >   
   >It was Harriet Harman who introduced the Equality Act, in the death   
   >throes of the Brown government. During the recent row over the Garrick   
   >Club, Harman declared that, after her revolution, Labour’s idea of   
   >equality is now ‘a recognised public policy objective’ – and what’s   
   >more, that ‘all those in public life should be committed to that   
   >objective’. But do ordinary Brits really share Labour’s dreams of a   
   >totalitarian equalities state? I’d imagine not. It’s high time a major   
   >party took a chunk out of it.   
   >   
   >   
   >Laurie Wastell   
   --   
   Noah Sombrero mustachioed villain   
   Don't get political with me young man   
   or I'll tie you to a railroad track and   
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   Who dares to talk to El Sombrero?   
   dares: Ned   
   does not dare: Julian  shrinks in horror and warns others away   
      
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