Tories pledge to scrap diversity rule after Nowak murder

[Twiglets1]

The Tories have pledged to tear up the requirement for public-sector bodies to promote equality following the murder of Henry Nowak.

Kemi Badenoch 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, Mrs 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.”

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/06/08/tories-pledge-to-scrap-diversity-rule-after-nowak-murder/

Yes, they want to scap the Public Sector Equality Duty that I posted up thread

So Kemi did nothing to remove the PSED when she was Minister for Equalities. This is not the time for political grandstanding - very serious events have happened that need careful consideration. This is where the ordinary people, and organisations, are able to hold public bodies to account for failing to comply. It is wide ranging.

Kemi is proposing overhauling the Equality Act, not scrapping it - if that's what you mean by "the act".

As part of a wider overhaul of the Equality Act she is proposing scrapping the Public Sector Equality Duty which came into affect in 2010 (women had protection at work in 2010 before the PSED came into effect).

According to various sources, the proposed change aims to position the Conservatives between Labour's new equality duties and Reform UK's plan to scrap the entire Equality Act.

This is something Kemi has acknowledged.

As reported by the BBC:

She also said equality law "properly designed should protect us all in the same way", adding: "It should be a shield, not a sword."

But she said the understanding that such laws should protect people from being treated differently is being "perverted".

Badenoch said "modern Britain is the least racist country on Earth" and pointed to her experience as a child of living on three different continents.

She added: "It is because we are not racist, because we care so much about equality that we have overcorrected and actually brought in rules that are actually discriminatory."

Badenoch said repealing the PSED would be the "best way" to "remove discrimination from the law while still protecting equality under the law".

She acknowledged she did not ask for the PSED to be removed during her time in government serving as an equalities minister, and said she "kept trying to explain to people how to make sure they complied with the law in the Equality Act", but her letters were "ignored" and so the best approach now was to remove the PSED.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy5vyqykpx5o

@Twiglets1 Yes. Kemi comes over as doing her job - which is to make the Conservatives relevant. She seeks for ways of positioning them as different to Labour or Reform. It is not a good time for knee-jerk reactions to established rules that she has opposed when in power. It is about disability and provision of services.

"modern Britain is the least racist country on Earth" . How can we possibly assess this claim - it smacks of political grandstanding.

There is so much wrong with your thinking. It’s hard to know where to start unpicking it. Mind blowing really.

That's your opinion - not mine.

I wouldn't necessarily have said that "modern Britain is the least racist country on Earth" as that is obviously very hard to assess. But Kemi is entitled to her opinion and I do agree that we are one of the least racist countries. At least we make a big effort to curb racism in Britain, whereas it's easy to name other countries that don't bother either at all or not to the same extent.

It's actually nice (in my opinion) for a politician to recognise that Britain has some positives, it has become fashionable to talk about the negatives all the time.

Yeah all those twats shimmying up lamp posts to fly their NF flags aren’t racist at all! So “ modern”… NOT 🙈

Apologies, correction to my post above:

established rules that she has not **opposed when in power

Can you name any country that doesn't have racist idiots?

It's a long time since the NF were relevant in Britain. Maybe you mean people flying the union jack or England flags?

I struggle to see how the implementation of this proposal would have led to any other outcome in the Henry Nowak murder.

As Labour are adamant on installing Burnham in a non democratic way, of course Kemi is going to take the next 2 years to take the centre common sense ground and start working on all issues that have gotten us where we are. Which is post structuralist confusion and entity politics taking over common sense.
Not to discriminate has never been the same as a positive duty to actively discriminate and promote certain identities. As the latter has ended up in all sorts of negativity across society and led to fights between different minorities and Reform etc, she is right to address that (subject to the detail of course),

I don't think he would be alive if this culture had not been instilled into public services, because of the knife wound through the heart, but I don't think he would have died in handcuffs.

Amend the duty, perhaps have it not a blanket detail for all public bodies. Policing is very different from education, for example.

I am not greatly enamoured by vague laws, but would prefer the existing law to none at all.

It would help your argument more if you even tried.

Burnham has to be elected first, in a democratic way.

Badenoch had the chance to actually do something when she was in government. Why didn't she?

Sure but policing is the one lacking in diversity and predominantly white male British work force so is the one that actually needs a diversity drive.
The civil service does not.
If you are a rape victim, would you not rather have a female police officer? I certainly would. Same as female doctor for gynae issues. So there are some professions where it makes sense just to have a diversity plan of recruitment. Judiciary would be another one.

Could you describe in detail the relationship between this policy and Henry's treatment by police? I see no connection.

DEI is American and is not used in the UK so I wonder where you get your views from 🤔 plastic Uk trump maybe? People from ethnic minorities are still 4 x more likely to be stopped by police than white people. What about the recent murder by a white national of a student from Saudi Arabia or the fact that a woman is killed by a (usually white) man every 3 days in the UK? Funny how cases that don’t fit the narrative don’t provoke the same cold rage.

Teaching would be the opposite. Would be better to have more male teachers again, may work better for some boys. So a plan to have a diverse work force according to the demographic it serves would always be common sense. But there is no need to specifically hire someone if another person is actually a better fit for the job.

What a dumb, knee-jerk idea.... oh look here's some bad things that happened so let's ignore all the ways the duty of equality has helped people and ban the whole thing. 🙄

By all means reform edge cases that lead to bad outcomes, but throwing the whole thing out it's just absurd and obscene.

I remember the 2010 spend on diversity in my then London borough. They went a bit over the top. Hired all sorts of people to implement it. Surely 16 years later it has become part of the culture and no longer needs active promotion and spend.
I think this is about priorities and urgency foremost. At least that is what I assumed it was.

The only criteria should be if the candidate is suitable to do the job.

The rules were completely stupid, police not stop and search certain ethnicities even though it was known what ethnicity were running certain crime rings, as they’d moan, just ridiculous.
The mental health teams being told too many black men were in being sectioned so people died just so it didn’t upset people.
Fire services and police forces only hiring females or ethnic minorities rather than the best candidates, all utter madness.

Yes, hence equality duty because it's been shown time and again that people are not neutral about which candidates are 'suitable to do the job'. NB, not sure this duty is about hiring so much as provision of services, may be wrong.

At any rate, equity in hiring is not about turning down a more qualified candidate for a less good one on account of their identity, I don't know why I still have to say this - it's about trying to make sure you don't miss out on the best candidate because of that little voice in your head telling you that one person is 'a safe pair of hands' or 'a good cultural fit' when those things mean 'the sort of person everyone tells you represents those things' and who you are more likely to give the benefit of the doubt. That doesn't make the people who think that or the people they hire bad and evil, it's just a known and common phenomenon. Equity asks you to consider if you're discounting someone for the right reasons - and the answer can be 'Yes, I am', that's OK.

I don't believe there is any evidence to suggest that incompetent women/people of colour/LGBTQ+ people/people with disabilities are being over-hired into leadership, let's put it that way.