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

[IwantToRetire]

Sir Keir Starmer’s government is drawing up new statutory guidance that critics say amounts to a “war on the middle class”.

Under the plans, public sector bodies will have a new “socio-economic duty” imposed on them, meaning that all decisions they make must strive to reduce inequality in society.

The policy would lead to benefits claimants and deprived families being prioritised for taxpayer-funded services, with the middle classes pushed to the back of the queue, according to the Conservatives.

The socio-economic duty has been dubbed “Harman’s law” after Baroness Harman, the former Labour deputy leader who originally brought it in as part of the Equality Act in 2010.

It included a clause that required public bodies to “have due regard to the desirability of exercising [their functions] in a way that is designed to reduce the inequalities of outcome which result from socio-economic disadvantage”.

The Tories kept the Act when they won the election later that year, but scrapped the socio-economic element, with Theresa May, then home secretary, describing it as “ridiculous”.

Full article at https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2026/03/29/labour-equality-law-revamp-inflict-socialism-britain/

And at https://archive.is/397ko

I dont mind everyone ignoring what i have posted but if you listen to economists, potential investors, etc, the issue isn't about tinkering with tax levels, or the bizarre notion that Reform would do it better. One of the biggest reasons we are currently up shit creek is the economic negative impact of Brexit.

We have an historic problem of lack of investment in infrastructure.

We have an historic problem that we are not as productive as workers in other countries.

We have an historic problem with paying of a level of debt similar to the one some in the west used to campaign to try and get cancelled for developing countries as the debt repaysment undermine any potential to have enought to invest.

Having discussion which are little better than re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, are pointless.

But the culture in the UK means we can never have an adult conversation.

I dont mind everyone ignoring what i have posted but if you listen to economists, potential investors, etc, the issue isn't about tinkering with tax levels, or the bizarre notion that Reform would do it better. One of the biggest reasons we are currently up shit creek is the economic negative impact of Brexit.

I think the question is whether you would prefer a quarter of a ten-inch pie, or a third of a nine-inch pie.

Brexit is something which I would consider to be a consequence of ongoing economic and social problems, rather than a cause of them (although it will undoubtedly have its own consequences). Whilst being part of the European Union increased GDP, it's pretty clear that not everyone saw the benefits. If you worked in a large company which employed labour from overseas, or were a mobile professional, the EU might seem unquestionably beneficial; if you were competing for housing, or employment, or public services which might be straining as a result of large-scale EU immigration into your local area, you might not see it as quite so benign.

And this is before we get to some of the absurdities about the situation; an example was paying child benefit to EU workers in the UK for children who were living in other countries. This one was waved away as trivial by the Labour party, though you might be able to see why financially-stretched families might consider it symptomatic of the problems created by EU membership.

So, back to the question of the pie; you actually get more pie if you have a third of a nine-inch pie, even though it's a smaller pie. It might thus be in the interests of individuals to shrink an economy if, by doing so, they gain more power within (and thus benefits from) the economy...

The underlying problem in addressing children in a household classified as living in poverty is that one is dealing with purely statistical measures. Take, for example, the two following families:

• Family one consists of two parents and two children living in the north-east of England in a council house. One parent works, and the household income is just low enough that they qualify as a household in poverty, but they have a very low rent for their housing, no childcare costs and, due to these and other circumstances, the family has a reasonable standard of living.
• Family two consists of a single parent with two children living in London in privately rented accommodation. The parent is a high earner on paper, but has significant travel costs, high rental costs, and high childcare costs, as well as a student loan to repay. The adult was effectively forced to locate to London due to this being the only place where work was available which utilised this individual's qualifications.

As a statistical measure, family one is in poverty, whilst family two is not, but, in reality, family one might have a far higher quality of life and more disposable income. Creating policies to redistribute wealth from family two to family one ought to be seen as problematic, and yet that is what is often advocated for by supposedly progressive politics. And I note that there are many families in similar circumstances to family one who are in genuine need, and many families in similar circumstances to family two who are in comfortable situations, but this is just more reason to think about what is wrong about our society, and try to find better solutions.

@5128gap
If we target support to lift children out of poverty, which is a shocking 31% of UK children,

This is a bad measure though, as it’s defined relative to median incomes. If everyone gets richer but some get richer than others, the measure shows that as a bad thing.

Basically, it’s the measure you would choose if you wanted poverty never to be solved, because it makes it mathematically almost unsolvable.

The absolute poverty measure shows large declines over decades, though has flattened out in the recent decade. That’s what we should mostly focus on.

Poverty in the UK is defined as having income of 60% below the median AFTER housing costs so already allows for the situations you describe.

Get rid of the housing costs, and the general principle still stands, though.

I don't think it does. Your argument rests entirely on the fact that family two are paying much higher housing costs than family one. Take housing costs out of the equation and there is no reason at all why family one would be better off than family two.
If high housing costs mean family two are left with less than 60% of the median income after housing costs, they would be considered in poverty. If low housing costs mean family one have 60% or more after housing costs, they would not.

More people are getting a smaller slice (neoliberal policies) of a smaller pie (brexit). Lose twice unless very lucky.

I agree with your post but there is more around this
We have an historic problem that we are not as productive as workers in other countries.

This is true but not because we are lazy. We are less productive because we don't invest in training and productivity measures. For example a high productivity economy would invest in a digger to dig a hole. Here we would hire 5 blokes and shovel (on minimum wage or at least a lot less than the digger operator) and save the capital expenditure, which presumably would show in our profits or dividends making us seem more profitable. This of course ignores the fact that with a digger you can make holes a lot quicker than 5 blokes and a shovel. We are a low wage low skill economy and have constantly avoided upskilling our workforce (by teaching them to operate diggers) or buying actual diggers. The fault lies with our short termism management and short term returns on capital. Fuck knows how we'd change that, it seems baked in. At least in the anglo-saxon business world.

I should add that the low wage low skill economy that we choose to operate requires a constant demand for the lowest cost unskilled workers with all the problems that causes on infrastructure and eventual social unrest.

I seem to remember a few threads on here bemoaning the class bias at the BBC for example. In particular people making the point that "Diversity" efforts ignored the issues of class and therefore you had a cadre of elites (post upper middle class types) who were out of touch and couldn't connect with for example the reasons "ordinary" women might not want trans women in their toilets. But when there is an effort to adjust to this, that's bad to. Inequality is a very hard thing to fix. Especially when the categories (class, income, family income) are quite fluid. But when you are talking about representation in public bodies I think it's important to at least try. Or at least try to avoid discrimination. Just as women shouldn't be discriminated based on sex, maternity etc, so people shouldn't be excluded based on class or accent. That is something that stil happens in the UK.
Its amazing though that all the right wing papers who were asking "what about you g white working class boys, why are they being ignored" when someone else was talking about racism or sexism are now up in arms when the government is looking at improving opportunities for those same white working class boys (and presumably Black WC men and women too).Almost as though the outrage at those groups being ignored was performative all along.