The Sunday Telegraph reports that there’s a backbench rebellion brewing over the Worker Protection Bill, a private members’ bill sponsored by a couple of Lib Dems that would massively extend the Equality Act 2010 and which is being supported by the Government. Will Hazell and Edward Malnick have more.
Rishi Sunak is facing a Tory revolt over “draconian” laws that will allow shop assistants, bar staff and doctors to sue their employers if a member of the public offends them at work.
New harassment rules on the brink of becoming law will enable medics to sue the NHS if a patient insults them, allow bar staff to take legal action against landlords if they are offended by drunk punters, and let baristas take coffee shop owners to a tribunal if they overhear offensive remarks made by customers.
Senior Tories warn the proposed law will lead to an explosion of litigation and force business owners to run their establishments like a “police state”.
A Whitehall source said ministers were “sleep walking” into a “big expansion” of the Labour-era Equality Act, which Mr Sunak had previously blamed for enabling “woke nonsense to permeate public life”.
The row will come as a major embarrassment to the Prime Minister, who has been seeking to position the Conservatives against “woke” policies that are unpopular with many business owners and working-class voters.
Tory backbenchers accused the Government of “taking their eye off the ball” by supporting a “mad” Private Member’s Bill, sponsored by two Liberal Democrat parliamentarians, on course to become law within weeks.
The Bill was waved through the Commons without a vote during a Friday sitting when most MPs were back in their constituencies.
Ministers are under pressure to ditch or gut the legislation, with backbenchers warning that purported “freedom of speech” protections added into the Bill will do little to save employers from crippling litigation.
The Worker Protection Bill will make employers liable for staff being harassed by “third parties” such as customers or members of the public. It introduces a legal requirement for companies and public bodies to take “all reasonable steps” to prevent this.
Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former business secretary, said establishments that “serve the public can expect to run a police state in their business”, while Sir John Hayes, the chairman of the Common Sense Group of Tory MPs, said it had “sinister implications”. Another Conservative MP, Craig Mackinlay, said he believed the change was “draconian”.
Lord Frost, the former Cabinet Office minister, described the Bill as a “woke, socialist measure” that would “have a chilling effect on every conversation in a workplace”.
Lord Strathcarron, a Tory peer who runs a publishing firm, said bookshops could be put off inviting authors such as JK Rowling to give talks, “on the off chance that one of the author’s fans might be wearing a T-shirt that says, ‘Woman Equals Adult Human Female’, knowing that an employee could sue for hurt feelings – real or vexatious”.
Other scenarios, he added, could include “somebody going into the Dog and Duck … then insulting the barman, and the barman suing the landlord. Or someone going for an MOT, the car fails, and they slag off the mechanic and the mechanic sues the garage owner. It’s mad and no one’s thought it through.”
While a separate clause in the Bill putting a duty on bosses to prevent the sexual harassment of employees commands broad support, peers are demanding the Government drop the introduction of a new obligation on employers to prevent harassment by third parties that relates to a “protected characteristic” such as sex, gender reassignment or age. Critics fear this will lead to companies having to expel clients over trivial incidents and facing costly litigation by staff.
Worth reading in full.
The Free Speech Union has been campaigning vigorously against this bill, but it hasn’t attracted nearly as much scrutiny as it should. Let’s hope this article changes that. You can read the FSU’s briefing on the bill here.
Stop Press: The Sunday Telegraph has published a strong leader urging the Government to rethink this bill.
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Oh I do enjoy it when these murderous scum are unequivocally caught bang to rights and their plots unravel faster than an Andrex toilet roll carried away by a cute labrador. Very satisfying.
The big plus to being caught lying so egregiously is that a few more sheep will have their eyes opened and not just concerning the Voice statement.
Most on here will be well aware of the adage:
How do you know when a politician is lying?
Their lips are moving.
This brings the lies to life. Marvellous. Sadly, the lies can only be seen as cover for something of seriously dangerous intent, something intended to cause great harm to the Australian people.
Given that prison Island Australia appears to be the Davos Deviants testing ground where next for a similar ploy?
The UK, that’s why Sunak has been placed as PM
Is a Prine Minister misleading Parliament as serious in Australia as it is in GB? Should Albanese resign in disgrace??
…it’s only considered misleading if it goes against the approved narrative.
The most pernicious phrases in the English language: “Approved narrative” and “Official narrative”.
Not misleading …. blatantly LYING.
Meanwhile, in neighbouring NZ, take a moment to check out this lying, scummy barsteward PM. Seriously, has nobody confronted him with proof of his own BS yet??
https://twitter.com/_aussie17/status/1698284723918012632
Downright bloody evil.
Bit more evidence of other human pieces of excrement. Of course people were ”forced”. In what realm would anyone other than the rich have the luxury of choosing to have a job or not? Especially if you have dependents. But that’s what they were being told to do through blatant blackmail; ”You either take the jab or we sack you”. Or completely ostracizing people from society… Certainly qualifies as ”forced” in my book.
https://twitter.com/wolsned/status/1698366258029150564
Apologies for this Mogs – what an utter coven of trash Next Tuesday’s in this video.
Oops and another one caught out with internet receipts. Although we are spoilt for choice with clips of Dr Evil lying;
https://twitter.com/mazemoore/status/1698373433963303182
The lying gits all have selective memory issues
I don’t – and won’t – forget and I certainly will always remember what ‘they’ did and said.
This is partially a good news story. Thanks for covering it. The no Campaign has asked for more detail from the start. In response to this many on the yes side quoted the longer document and more detailed Uluru statement as containing all the detail they were asking for. Then the Yes side turned and said the more detailed document was a conspiracy. The labor government has also pulled modest funding for the building of boarding schools for indigenous students whilst spending hundreds of millions on this “gesture” of a referendum. Its quite likely this proposal will further disempower most australians while pouring money into the activist minority and providing no tangible benefits for the most disadvantaged indigenous australians.
This reminded me of the LIES Heath told the country in 1970 when we were taken into the EEC, with no referendum and the LIES Wilson told the country when he finally held one two years’ later:
It was just a free trade area; there would be no loss of Sovereignty. Meanwhile the Mandarin at the Foreign Office had written a briefing note stating that it was intended to morph the EEC into a Federal Europe and by the time the British people woke up to what was being done, it would be too late to escape.
Fortunately, it wasn’t.
Yes, good points.
I have made the point for many years that Heath should have been hung for his treason.