The Tories have pledged to tear up the requirement in the Equality Act for public-sector bodies to promote equality and diversity following the murder of Henry Nowak. The Telegraph has more.
Kemi Badenoch, the Tory leader, has pledged to scrap the “equality duty”, which requires state-sector organisations to foster equality of opportunity between different groups, saying it encourages divisive identity politics.
The party believes the public sector equality duty (PSED) has fuelled a box-ticking mindset under which police officers are advised to treat people differently based on their ethnicity.
The PSED is part of the Equality Act 2010, and tells public bodies they must promote equality of opportunity between those who have a protected characteristic (such as women, black people and gay people) and those who do not.
The Tories believe removing it would restore the principle of equality before the law and stop councils and police forces from advancing “dangerous and divisive agendas”.
In a speech on Tuesday, Badenoch will say the duty has become a “minefield that exposes almost every significant public decision to legal challenge”.
“A court recently found that prison officials had breached their duty because their separation of prisoners was disproportionately affecting Muslims convicted of Islamic terrorism,” she will say in Westminster.
“These terrorists could now be eligible for compensation. This is madness. This duty is compromising security decisions like isolating dangerous criminals in case the terrorists call us racists.”
She will say the duty leads to “ludicrous outcomes”, such as Norfolk Police telling a job applicant that she was unsuitable because of her gender-critical views.
“The public sector equality duty has turned equality into a zero-sum game where some groups are preferred over others,” she will say. “And the more public bodies chase equality of outcome, the further they move from equal treatment and equality under the law.”
The intervention follows the political and public outcry over police actions on the night of Nowak’s murder in Southampton in December 2025.
Worth reading in full.
The public sector equality duty doesn’t just require promotion of “equality of opportunity”, of course. It requires public bodies to aim to “eliminate discrimination, harassment and victimisation” – defined expansively on the basis of “protected characteristics” like race, religion, sex and gender reassignment – and to “foster good relations between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share it”.
And its definition of advancing “equality of opportunity” doesn’t just mean banning discrimination, as you might think. It means actively intervening to level the playing field at every stage. Under it, public bodies must aim to:
(a) remove or minimise disadvantages suffered by persons who share a relevant protected characteristic that are connected to that characteristic;
(b) take steps to meet the needs of persons who share a relevant protected characteristic that are different from the needs of persons who do not share it;
(c) encourage persons who share a relevant protected characteristic to participate in public life or in any other activity in which participation by such persons is disproportionately low.
The third of those is essentially a requirement to use ‘positive action’ to ensure that the ‘representation’ of all races, religions, sexual orientations etc. in all activities, both public and private, is in line with their presence in the population. Equality of outcome, in other words.
The Tories are right to target this duty, and removing it would be a good start. But there is much else in the Equality Act that needs deleting as well – the sections on ‘positive action’, for instance, and indeed much of the Act. And the Equality Act, while certainly the legislative heart of wokery in UK law, is by no means the whole of it. Its principles have come to permeate wide tracts of law and public and private life. Eliminating the Left-wing biases that now saturate the two-tier British state will take a determined effort by a Government with a clear focus and a healthy Parliamentary majority over a number of years.
Discussion
Comments
This week across the site:
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to the Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
Better still, just scrap EVERY bill T Blair put in place since 1997.
Yes! And every EU bill, too. As MP Rupert Lowe said, we need a “Great Repeal Act”.
Thank you – correct.
Another day and another screeching U-Turn from the Treacherous Tories on everything they accepted, promoted and enhanced from the Blair/Brown administrations.
And that’s IF you believe Badenough and think that next time they’d rediscover Conservatism and would put it into practice.
Wanna buy a bridge ….?
The Nigerian Anchor Baby is just COPYING RUPERT LOWE’S RESTORE BRITAIN POLICIES !!!
Kemi Badenoch, the “Tory” leader…
Tory? How many of the Tory Party core principles did they live by when in power. Here are the principles they have forgotten.
The Tory Party’s core principles:
Individual Freedom and Responsibility: The party champions personal self-reliance, free speech, and minimal state interference in private life.
Free Enterprise and Fiscal Responsibility: A core belief that competitive free markets and private property generate the wealth needed to fund public services. The party generally advocates for lower taxes and reduced government borrowing.
Limited Government: Conservatives recognise that the state plays a crucial role but advocate for a smaller, highly efficient government that limits its reach.
National Security: Maintaining a strong military, robust border control, and safeguarding national institutions (like the criminal justice system and parliament).
Tradition and Continuity: A commitment to preserving British cultural values, national heritage, and the integrity of the United Kingdom
Mistress Badenough now against everything she and her passel of Tory swamp creatures were for five minutes ago, and will suddenly be for again if elected.
Just not credible.
Changing the rules is one thing (not that she’ll ever have a majority in the house to do it…). Heart and minds is another thing. Anyone who imagines that we change a few rules and those who have been brainwashed for 20 years will come on board and change their ways is an utter fool. It runs deep and it runs strong, and as no-one got here by logical thought, its no use thinking that winning the intellectual or even the practical argument is enough.
David Shipley says much the same thing;
”The Tories seem neither to understand the reasons for their failures from 2010 to 2024, nor do they have any real desire to undo the creep of state discrimination against the majority since Macpherson. Indeed, their governments accelerated and further entrenched the Blair-era legislation. Why would they propose to repeal Sections 149-157 of the Equality Act, while leaving the rest (which does a very great deal of harm) intact? The Tory pledge would somewhat reduce the statutory ‘equality’ duties applied to the public sector, but change nothing else.
Kemi’s statement attacks Reform, saying:
It is clear from even the most cursory reading of the Equality Act and review of the case law that it is the Tories who have not done ‘the detailed policy work’.”
https://www.pimlicojournal.co.uk/p/kemis-speech-today-will-show-the
“… which would open the floodgates to more DEI and affirmative action in workplaces…”
That deluge is already in full flood you nitwit, floodgates opened by the Tory Party in Government.
She is suggesting the Act that enabled the DEI crap will protect white, male, heterosexuals. She truly is on another planet.
So Kemi thinks the Equality Act is needed to protect everybody and Reform are wrong to abolish it. Just tell the woke plods, judges, civil servants and HR bossy boots etc.to use their common sense instead.
Kemi. They haven’t got any common sense. That’s why they used the Equality Act to create nonsense
This is why the Tories will NEVER get my vote again. Their manifesto should long ago have been committed to scrapping that repulsive rule and all the crap like it. Only now when something like this happens to those dripping wet centrist banker lovers think it’s time to make a show on behalf of the people who gave them a genuine landslide. F off
As long as, closer to the election, she distances the party from the Cameron years, she’s good for me. Better than Farage.
Why would you believe them and in what way(s) is she “better than Farage”?
‘Stick with nurse for fear of something worse’.
Just what the Conservatives are banking on; despite failing on every single public policy (with a small exception of Educational standards).
People who vote Conservative these days are like just battered wives who want to give their abusive partner ‘one more chance’.
They are going to do nothing of the sort. The only party that will is Restore.
The biggest fan and supporter of Restore is unfortunately Starmer.
The Right are about to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Rubbish!
I have noticed that Rupert is long on defining the problem, and way too short on proposing a solution. He is a rabble rouser, safe in the knowledge that he will never have to implement anything he suggests.
Restore isn’t a Party, it’s a one-man band with a few followers.
132,000 few supporters that’s more than the LibDems have.
And more than the Tory Party has.
Yawn.
Fourteen years of promises to do what they perceived would get them elected followed by 14 years of doing the opposite.
The Equality Act was passed in 2010. During their 14 years in office, during which time Ms Badenock served as a Minister, latterly a Cabinet Minister. Why did she not do something, anything about this or the many other issues which she likes to make announcements about.
If the Tory Party really believed in the policies they announce when under pressure in opposition they would stop attacking Reform. Reform have occupied this policy agenda for years so late comers who were responsible for the implementation of the problem are not welcome.
Wasn’t Olukemi Olufunto Adegoke Badenoch Minister for Women and Equalities from 2022-24. Maybe she could have done something about it then. Shut up Mrs B, you are irrelevant.
Shouldn’t we give her her title: “Nigerian Princess Olukemi Olufunto Adegoke Badenoch”
No, it should be “Nigerian Anchor Baby” etc.
It seems that every wealthy person in Nigeria calls themselves either prince, or princess, or queen, because the kings and tribal chieftains have so many wives (“queens”) and descendants and relatives in their huge clans, all claiming the right to name their sprogs “Prince” or “Princess”.
But these titles are meaningless in western civilization, especially in the few surviving monarchies like Britain, where there is only one king and one queen, whose children & grandchildren are called prince or princess … not the entire extended clan.
This can never be applied to the Ethnic European Surrogate-Born sprogs of Harry, whose wife had a hysterectomy at the age of 29, so Harry can have no legitimate royal children, unless he divorces and marries a fertile woman. DNA tests should be required of all heirs to the throne.
More irrelevant rubbish from the Dead-in-the-Water Party.
Blah, blah, blah….. More pointless garbage flowing out of the mouth of the Tory leader. Hey, we failed for fourteen years but, promise we’ll do it this time, honest, I really mean it. What’s that you say, I’ve got my fingers crossed behind my back,damn you weren’t meant to see that. Who are all those people behind me laughing their heads off? Oh don’t worry about them, they’re just some good folks from the WEF making sure I do what they and those nice liberal Tories tell me to do.
On another topic, nothing for months from Starmer about Henry Nowak, but instant condemnation from him this morning about events in Belfast, he really is a useless POS.
I wonder how many people in Britain are aware of the fact that our elected representatives have passed a law that mandates “equality”, in other words, guaranteed discrimination against white people.
And I wonder how they explain to themselves how this has happened.
According to Lammy ‘equality under the law’ does not exist…..
They also pledged to reduce immigration, then put the entire population under house arrest over a cold. No thanks you are made of BS
THIS IS SICKENING, BE WARNED!
Just look at this savagery on a neighborhood street in North Belfast last night!
SICKO ‘TRIES TO SAW OFF MAN’S HEAD’ in Brutal Belfast Street Attack, Hero Locals Jump in With A Hurley Stick – Videos – VidMax.com https://share.google/3RB4NkedF3eN8zCok