Farage is right. We must roll back DEI nonsense

Telegraph

06-05-2025

'When you first meet someone, you don't want to ask about their pronouns,' reads new guidance issued by Liverpool University. 'This could make them feel like you're asking them to out themselves as transgender, agender, or non-binary, which they might not want to do, particularly if you work in a conservative office.'
You'd think we would all be immune to the upside-down world of woke by now. That after years of wild flip-flopping over what's right and wrong, we would be used to being heralded as a saintly progressive on a Tuesday (for using a certain term or word) and cancelled on a Wednesday (for being insensitive enough to use that same word). But even by these non-coherent standards, Liverpool University's new diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) guidance stopped me in my tracks.
Let me get this straight: after years of telling us that it's basically a criminal offence not to ask every single person we interact with 'how they identify' on that particular morning, we're now being informed that this is forbidden? A disgraceful and potentially shaming thing to do? No wonder people agree with Reform's description of DEI as 'complete nonsense'. No wonder they greeted Nigel Farage's incendiary comments on Friday – 'If you're a DEI officer, I suggest you look for another job' – with a virtual cheer.
What saddens me is that it didn't have to be nonsense. Like the paper straws that incurred a disproportionate level of ire (from Donald Trump, above all), the basic idea was obviously good. It's the ramming down one's throat that people object to. (And, in the case of the straws, the sogginess.)
Do you know anyone who would argue that a framework focussed on creating fair and inclusive environments for all is a bad idea? Aside from the guy who sits outside the entrance of my local tube station muttering racial slurs, I don't. Beating people over the head with it, though? That's not going to help your cause. Creating a whole new nonsensical and ungrammatical language that must be spoken fluently or else? Not the way to do it. But most self-defeating is the seemingly constant rule changing.
I do believe that the majority of us are well-meaning in this regard. That we may not always be tactful or graceful in the way that we phrase things, and that it may sometimes take certain sectors of society a moment to get used to how fast the world is changing, but that the will to be inclusive is, essentially, there.
What a shame that instead of capitalising on that willingness to overcome any existing prejudices, DEI managed to put people off not just the driving concept but the very word 'inclusion'.