The Equality Act is a gift to grifters, and Labour wants to make it worse

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18 hours ago

As an undergraduate student, I welcomed the passage of the 2010 Equality Act. As a young minority 'progressive' of Bangladeshi Muslim heritage, I championed the fact that ethnicity and religious belief were enshrined as protected characteristics in British law. But times have changed.
A new report published by campaign group Don't Divide Us (DDU) has – quite rightly in my view – identified the Equality Act as a piece of legislation which is contributing towards a more divided and fractured Britain. The research has found that over the last decade, there has been an explosion in the number of tribunal cases for racial discrimination – yet, only one in 20 claims were successful. The educationalist and director of DDU, Dr Alka Sehgal-Cuthbert, has labelled the Equality Act the cornerstone of a grievance culture which is all too ready to resort to 'lawfare' to resolve low-level disputes and imagined slights on the grounds of identity.
It has become increasingly apparent that the Equality Act – which should have been a shield to protect people from genuine forms of discrimination – has been used as a sword by those who are anything but interested in the equality of opportunity.
This accelerated following the emergence of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement in the UK, which was ultimately America-brained radical-progressive activism in a part of the world which had some of the most robust anti-discrimination protections on the grounds of race, ethnicity, and religion. The rise of the unholy trinity of diversity, equality, and inclusion (DEI) has threatened to undo much of the incredible progress we have made when it comes to race relations. The pendulum has swung so far in the other direction, minorities have increasingly become the beneficiaries of preferential treatment – often at the expense of white-British men.
The Equality Act, and its offshoots such as the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) and Positive Action programmes, has not brought us greater fairness, equality, and harmony. In fact, it has been weaponised in a manner which is diametrically opposed to such ideals.
While there will be many on the contemporary British Left who remain incredibly protective over the Equality Act, it is perhaps in their interests to be honest over its impact and explore whether certain provisions should be tightened (if not repealed). While the PSED's current provisions state that public authorities have due regard to the need to 'foster good relations between people', this is overly vague and nebulous – there should be an explicit expectation for such bodies and agencies to promote economic, social, and cultural integration. Positive action schemes are supposed to develop the skills of people from 'underrepresented' or 'disadvantaged' groups – but the obsession with race and sexual orientation means that disability is all too often overlooked. To be blunt, it is not viewed as a 'fashionable' protected characteristic by many 'social-justice' activists.
The alternative, of course, is doing away with the Equality Act altogether – which is unlikely to happen under a Labour government which wants to bring in a Race Equality Act, doubling down on the original legislation. But it could be a future manifesto pledge for parties of the Right. It could be scrapped in its entirety or replaced with a fresh Equality of Opportunity legislation which has a strong emphasis on regional inequality and seeks to address cultural deprivation in left-behind communities.
As currently constituted, the Equality Act's future is far from certain. And so-called 'anti-racists' who have pursued the equality of outcome over opportunity, only have themselves to blame.
Dr Rakib Ehsan is the author of Beyond Grievance
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