Labour draws up equality law revamp that will inflict ‘socialism’ on Britain

Lol we've always been a larger group. They just take some of our very little money to fund everything anyway so there are even more people at the bottom. Yes, it's bloody crowded down here. And you still take from the system when you're at the top. It isn't as if you JUST contribute and you often get more out of the system than anyone else, too.

I believe it also benefits some employers because they do not have to pay employer NICS if staff work less than a specific number of hours.

When politicans try to orchestrate 'equality' they often mean 'for you not for them'.

And when the shit hits the fan as it will do, the rich will fuck off, they are never likely to give up their wedge for the poorest, not gonna happen.

So there is even less to go round.

The system in moden countries that is supposed to tax the rich and provide for the poor - doesn't work.
The NHS which is supposed to give a baseline care to everyone - completely broken.
Housing - well is there even a word for that shitshow?
The money available from Council Tax - where does that go? Policing tweets? Brilliant.
Councils going into administration - what magic equality wand is going to fix those?

If the Labour government are going to put more onus on already busted flushes the result is likely to not be equality that's for sure.

This is a back slapping 'aren't we such great socialists' that is never going to resolve real issues.

There is no such thing as equality so in that way, as there is also no such thing as 'trans' you may be onto something there.

Reducing inequality? Disgusting!

Activating the socio-economic duty in the Equality Act was a Labour manifesto commitment, I think, and absolutely nothing to do with sex/gender. Wales and Scotland have activated it already.

Improving outcomes for people from disadvantaged backgrounds is not a bad thing and the Telegraph article is ludicrously overblown. In practice though I suspect that doing this will just lead to more bureaucratic hoops and no differences to people's lives.

There's an EHRC research article about it here: https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/media-centre/news/ehrc-publishes-new-research-socio-economic-duty-implementation-ahead-introduction

Yep McSweeney has gone and Starmer is now at the bidding of the left in the party,

Local elections will be another test, they could go in the other direction.

How can they restrict police services to poorer people? How can we go private for that? What are we paying our vast taxes for? If middle classes aren't even able to be protected now and their safety is secondary, what's the point of this government if it doesn't govern for the whole country?

I think Labour have gone nuts.

What happens when those at the bottom become a larger group than those at the top? We have more net recipients than we have contributors in the UK.

I don’t know the stats but would be interested to understand how many people on UC and also in work are working part time not full time.

That is as much of an issue as low wages are. People choosing part time and only as few hours as they can to still access benefits. I’m not saying it’s deliberate for malicious reasons, may well be for childcare reasons or that they are less well off working full time without benefits- what we all know as the benefits trap. That’s a huge issue for the UK as it limits productivity.

@MyThreeWordshas it. The socio-economic duty is present in the Equality Act 2010 as section 1:

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/section/1

As I understand things, the government intends to write the guidance referred to in that section to give it force. As the guidance appears to be a devolved matter that would be in England with Scotland and Wales having their devolved powers to write their own guidance.

I got things a bit wrong in my previous post - the duty wasn't abolished, it was simply never 'commenced'. The act has always provided for this duty to be implemented, but successive Tory govts refused to, because it was an embarrassment to their mission of eroding services.

It looks like one of the factors behind the renewed push to commence it is the findings of the Covid inquiry, which showed how the differential effects on people of the pandemic were shaped by socio-economic inequality.

Assessing inequality isn't 'socialism'. It is a pragmatic part of the self-monitoring of any efficient and principled government.

And although the duty is embedded in the Ewuality Act, I don't think that it has bearings on the current failure to implement guidance relating to single-sex spaces. It's not as if the duty makes poverty a protected characteristic -- it is a different dimension of the act.

There is useful info about the duty here: https://justfair.org.uk/campaigns-2/1forequality/

Maybe there is a overlap with people very concerned about "sex related issues" (read: trans stuff) and those who are are fearful of equality

I'm not sure why this shift in the Equality Act is provoking so much fear here. Surely in an era of increasing socio-economic inequality and decreased social mobility, it is a good thing that public bodies should be required to assess the impact of their policies in relation to this?

I do understand, of course, that among feminists there is a huge amount of mistrust of the government, because of its obstruction of the guidance relating to sex. But I'm not convinced that this newly resurrected duty is connected with that.

It seems pretty amazing that this socio-economic duty was ever removed -- and you can see what an embarrassment it would have been to the Tories as they collaborated in eroding a whole load of services in the name of austerity. When services collapse (schools, provision for special educational needs, policing, early years childcare, healthcare, etc etc) it is very often the poorest who are impacted the most, and the abolition of the socio-economic duty helped to make those impacts go unassessed and unaddressed.

I’m not so sure.

Quite a lot of really good child centred policies were swiped away by the tories when the got in.

The greens are indeed a worrying problem. The entryism is out of control there.

Don’t forgot that the telegraph is the Tory loudspeaker and they are trying to get people back to them too.

Yup.

Given the largest statistical actual risk to children from a safeguarding pov is poverty, I don’t see how anyone here can’t see that this is the purpose.

They’re not re writing any laws clarified by the SC judgement here.

He sees the Green Party as the bigger immediate threat than Reform, because if they do well at Labour's expense in the May elections then Starmer is out. By going far left he thinks he's taking them on and making it too difficult for Labour to oust him and replace him with someone seen as more left wing.

It's entirely performative, but the result will be detrimental to the electorate and he'll still lose his job anyway.

Yes but the guidelines are just in addition to the law. The tell me like I’m 5 bit. After stonewall spread their shite everywhere. The law is the law.

money not only!

Re short of only, there is always money for armaments and privatised projects.

Yep, this is how they will get around the Supreme Court ruling. They won't do it in isolation but they'll hide it in a raft of equalities legislation updates. They will make the excuse of not approving the EHRC guidance because of upcoming Equalities updates. And they won't have thought any more deeply about defining terms like gender or what exactly makes someone a transwoman. They have learnt nothing and listened less. The entire culture war is of the left's making. Sowing the seeds of an inevitable backlash.

I do not usually engage to much with political posts, because i am a homeless socialist.

I found as i have gotten older that i recognise the whole omnicause stuff, i find myself often not agreeing with either side on certain issues (where there are sides) and having no alternative solution to mind.

For example the Palestinian situation.

But on this post i would like to suggest that a large proportion of people receiving benefits are in work.

the issue to me is low wages especially for city dwellers and service sector workers.

I think Churchill once said that businesses who cannot afford to pay a decent wage have no business being in business.

I see what you did there! 😄