Tommy Robinson asked to leave a restaurant because staff felt uncomfortable serving him…

[harriethoyle]

… AIBU to enjoy this?!

If you spout objectionable views, don’t be surprised if people object to you!

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/tommy-robinson-kicked-out-hawksmoor-london-b1231594.html

I'm not familiar with that story, but having gender critical beliefs is one of the relatively few political beliefs that has been deemed protected.

That likely doesn't mean that you couldn't be declined service (you could, for example, have an Asher-like scenario where cake decorator lawfully refuses to ice a cake with gender-critical slogans) but you couldn't lawfully refuse to serve someone just because you know them to be gender critical.

If you owned a steakhouse and Gary Glitter popped in, sat at your top table and went live on Insta announcing the fact, what would you do?

Would you insist your staff served him? What would you say to the customers with kids sat at the tables next to his when they complained?

Nothing, right, because he hadn't abused and children in your restaurant? Just other people's opinions and prejudices?

It's groundhog day.

What absolute utter fucking nonsense.

The outcome of your argument restaurants would be forced to served anyone who comes through the door.

They must have discretion, subject to the law.

Particularly to refuse service to racists and criminals.

It's really not that difficult to understand.

What a shame. If people got it 600 posts ago then we wouldn't have to keep explaining it.

There's nothing to get. It's just your opinion. Goodnight.

It wasn't always clear legally that it was a "protected" belief.

But that's not really the point. The point is that while we can choose who we associate with socially, it's important in a liberal democracy that people with unpopular opinions are able to function fairly normally, for example being served in shops.

Many opinions that are now commonplace and considered deeply important at one time were considered immoral. By your logic people who held these views should have been shut out from even the commercial elements of public life.

But it's not "just" anyone's opinion, is it - it's the law which imposes the relevant boundaries.

Any restaurant serves criminals everyday. Many of them also employ plenty.

Exactly. It's called discretion. And obviously, you don't know the background of everyone coming into your restaurant. But when someone is a notorious criminal, known troublemaker and all round twat you can refuse service if you want to, as is your right.

I've not been giving "my logic", I've been explaining the law (particularly in the face of people repeatedly getting it wrong).

Though I will say that I'm not particularly concerned about a law as it is.

For example, if in a situation like the TR one, if the servers in the restaurant were Muslim, I'd be far more concerned about the employers duty of care towards their staff than I would TR's "right" to be served by them.

I'd also be more concerned about a business owner's right to refuse service to, say, a paedophile advocacy group, if their repeated presence deterred other customers.

If it got to the stage where someone like Robinson was so routinely denied service that he was meaningfully impeded in functioning in society, perhaps I would start to feel differently (whilst wondering what exactly could be done to balance everyone's interests/needs), but we're a million miles from there.

Not quite, whilst service providers can refuse service for the reasons that you've listed they are unable to refuse service for his beliefs

FFS...

Your wrong sorry but you are there's a very high threshold in deeming beliefs to be not WORIDS and I think you might be quite surprised by what is considered WORIDS in law

TR was not refused service because of his beliefs, so this is a moot point.

Gender identity is not a protected characteristic.
It is perfectly legal to discriminate against sex where it's reasonable and for a legitimate aim which is why men can be barred from working in a woman's rape crisis center or in your example

The threshold for what constitutes a protected belief is a high one - whether or not it is WORIDS (worthy of respect in a democratic society) is only one of the five arms of the test to be met.

I agree that the threshold for which beliefs are WORIDS is, in itself, not that high. However, an Employmet Appeal Tribunal decision, as recently as last year, determined that Islamaphobia, combined with English Nationalism, is not WORIDS.

Tommy Robinson, of course, is a prominent Islamaphobe, former member of the British Nationalist Party and co-founder of the (also nationalist) English Defence League...

Obviously not because they are providing a service that is vital for continuing existence. A pricey steak isn’t vital to continuing existence and private companies can choose who they do business with.

It would surprise me if any court would take away a private companies right to refuse to do business with disreputable individuals who can cause reputational damage.

If Tommee ten names posts on social media in front of a Hawksmoor sign, decent human beings could rightly assume that Hawksmoor supports him and avoids the place.

Ha! Brilliant, good for them, wish he was treated like that everywhere he goes.

Someone refused ro serve Keir starmer. No court case.

I double checked and you're right. I stand corrected. You can still refuse to serve someone for being a racist arsehole though, so Tommy Robinson and his defenders don't have a leg to stand on.

They're not right. Racism is not a protected characteristic and nor is being a thug.

The alternative to Tommy anyone? Hahahaha.

https://x.com/Boldyboy1975/status/1930744393142583400

No racism is not a protected characteristic at all, you can absolutely refuse to serve someone in your business because of that.