The Equality Act has transformed Britain’s understanding of equality from individual rights to group identity

[IwantToRetire]

This segmentation of the citizenry has come about not as a result of popular pressure or grass roots campaigning, but under the influence of the Equal Rights Trust — a clique of academics and international human rights lawyers seeking to supplant formal equality with their idea of “transformative equality”.

By such means, the 60-year-old tradition of anti-discrimination legislation in Britain has been transformed into a legal minefield which undermines the basis for informal social bonds as people come to face each other with suspicion rather than trust.

https://thecritic.co.uk/the-injustice-of-the-equality-act/

Came across this by chance, not sure I even understand it, but thought as the EA comes up on many FWR threads, some might find this interesting.

The EA2010 protects people as individuals via claims of direct discrimination. The prohibition against indirect discrimination sees people as members of multiple groups, each group sharing a protected characteristic.

I don't think the article is a very good one; it doesn't seem to acknowlege this.

I'm also old enough now to be comfortable saying that when a magazine article is difficult to understand, that's the fault of the article and not the reader.

It feels like it's cut and pasted from an article about another countries anti-discrimination law TBH. The Equality Act very explicitly DOESN'T talk about identities or specific protected groups. It talks about protected characteristics. Which is a very different thing, in some ways it's the direct opposite to a law based around some identity groups. There have been problems with people or companies not understanding this. Largely because they confuse UK law with US law. But that's not really the fault if the Equality Act itself.

The author is the Director of Don’t Divide Us, it's a critique of CRT, another one of the Hydra's many heads.

"Multiculturalism — as distinct from people from many cultural backgrounds getting along with each other — introduced the idea that equality means more than formal political rights, or even economic parity. Equality now entailed cultural recognition for minorities, whose culture was to be seen as de facto vulnerable to the norms of the majority culture. This majority culture was thereby held to be toxic, if not predatory."

Equality now entailed cultural recognition for minorities, whose culture was to be seen as de facto vulnerable to the norms of the majority culture. This majority culture was thereby held to be toxic
Except that's very explicitly not what the Equality Act does so it makes me suspect that if the author is that inaccurate about an area I know a bit about, they can't be trusted in areas I don't know about.

1. The Equality Act doesn't impose specific recognition for minorities. Black is a minority race for example but the EA doesn't specify black people as specifically needing protection. It names race as a protected characteristic. Very deliberately this covers everyone
2. There is no hierarchy between different expressions of the same characteristics built into the act. Eg the idea that holding the characteristic of a minority race (black, Asian, etc) qualifies one for more protection than holding the characteristic of white
3. There is no hierarchy between different protected characteristics built into the act (eg race versus disability). When this was tested in court it was confirmed that one type of characteristic (gender reassignment) does not take precedence over another (sex)

It feels like someone wanted to write an article about CRT and bent facts about the law to fit it. I'd have more respect if they'd criticised CRT on its own terms.

If you read the full article that the OP is based on you will see that the author of the OP and another woman have written a very long report.

Too hot and too tired to look at that, and not even sure who it is aimed at.

The article links to a report the author co-wrote, so it might be a bit of self publicity, but it's also to direct people to the report which is much more detailed than the article. One of the quotes in the report.

“When the Equality Act was drawn up it brought together decades of anti-discrimination legislation, but it also created new duties which have allowed identity politics and grievance culture to run rife. Across workplaces and within the public sector, promoting the needs of minority groups has caused division and distracted too many organisations from their core purpose. When the police are unable to stop criminals, when the NHS cannot say what a woman is, and when judges are no longer appointed on merit, we have to acknowledge that something is going badly wrong.
We will only right the ship if we get back to treating people by the content of their character rather than their protected characteristics. This report both exposes the problems and identifies ways we can restore balance. It is a great addition to the discussion as we work to bring about much-needed changes in law and culture.”
— The Rt. Hon. Claire Coutinho MP, Shadow Minister for Women and Equalities

Oops cross post, the report is quite interesting all though above my pay grade so I can't comment on whether it's any good.

I must admit I had thought I would take time to read the report, because there have been some on FWR who have queried they value of the EA - well for women's rights.

But then I saw that Suella Braverman recommends it, and then I thought well that want be worth reading.

I suppose that shows bias on my part.

I think that whether that was the intention or not, that has in fact been the effect.

What this makes think of is interest groups/networks in the workplace.

Because sure, the EA does protect individual characteristics rather than groups.

But if the duties imposed can only function in terms of groups like this, and only dome groups are legitimate, this sort of outcome seems inevitable.

Extracts from the introduction to the report:

Britain finds itself wrestling with the weight of its past—not through the familiar lenses of slavery or colonialism, but through a particular piece of legislation that has quietly reshaped our society. The Equality Act 2010, introduced by the Labour government and subsequently upheld by the Conservatives, demands scrutiny. Why has this legislation gone largely unquestioned? Why have so few on the Right mounted a serious challenge to it? Remarkably, no one has even dared question its so-called progressive credentials.

One line in the paper stands out with particular force: “the Equality Act 2010 enacted a fundamental and unprecedented shift from negative legal prohibitions against discrimination to a positive legal duty to enforce equality”.

This distinction matters enormously. The Equality Act is qualitatively different from earlier anti-discrimination legislation. It was demonstrably the product of a sustained campaign by internationalist lawyers seeking to revolutionise traditional British understandings of equality, freedom, and discrimination. The Act’s core features—protected characteristics, the Public Sector Equality Duty, and the requirement for positive action—have together created a system of justified discrimination.

We built a monster. The original intent of anti-discrimination law was to give citizens legal recourse against discriminatory acts. Instead, we created something far more ambitious: a framework that grants sweeping powers to the state and its agencies to actively enforce equality. The problem is not merely that this power exists—it is that access to it remains unevenly distributed. Notably absent from the Act’s protected characteristics are class and geography, the two factors that most reliably determine one’s prospects in modern Britain.
The paper before you offers three paths forward: repeal and replacement with a minimal anti-discrimination framework, full repeal, or partial repeal. Change is clearly necessary. Our ongoing debates about police training and anti-discrimination guidelines may have overlooked a more fundamental problem: we have embedded a flawed ideology into our legislative architecture itself.

What we discovered was that public bodies, unable to implement the Act’s equality duties themselves, outsourced the task to so-called experts. These consultants were expected to interpret not only the abstract concept of “equality” but also its application to specific local contexts. This was PhD-level work assigned to the nearest American-influenced activist, who simply told institutions they were racially sinful. In Nottingham, Southampton, Belfast, and Rotherham, we have witnessed the harmful—and in some cases deadly—consequences of this approach.

Lord Sewell CBE

https://www.prosperity.com/media-publications/some-more-equal-than-others/

(I doubt the report touches on it, but some of us have said similar about how TRAs got the stranglehold on "women's rights".)

He's right, how do you even decide what equality means?

Does it mean having an exact ratio of the local demographics in every workplace, school, or sports team?

It's not obvious to me why we would even want that, much less expect it.

Does it mean that if one group isn't performing at the same standard, say passing driver's tests, the measurement needs to be rejigged?

That we need quotas?

Something else?

That is thought provoking @TempestTost.

Even though we spout about equality all the time I bet the idea of what equality varies greatly.

Hmm 😁

I think we moved from Equality to Equity, which isn't the same thing, and that lead to the discrimination that's being highlighted.

The argument is correct. Equality turned to equity and has become a monster.

Equity has been based on equality of outcome without addressing or recognising the underlying causes of the inequality. Parental disinterest in education resulting in poor performance of some groups of students at A level, for example, is not a good reason to drop entrance standards to university for black students. Lack of black people with economics/maths qualifications is not a reason to drop the maths test for the recruitment of people to the Treasury Department .The pursuit of equity has created discrimination in favour of certain groups.

A Guinness Higher Education supplement article about these "contextual admissions" to university, as they are now called, says

"There has also been concern about how effective the process actually is, with the Social Mobility Commission finding in 2024 that while lowering entry grades “certainly helps a small number of people…it risks social mobility policy becoming a zero-sum game, as we are intervening to help one person at someone else’s expense”.

The effect of the Equalities Act in wider society has created fear of being accused of discrimination in organisations, which has given enormous power to some proportionately tiny pressure groups and and protection to some unspeakable vile criminals.

And we have the ridiculous situation where a judge who's never done either job sits in a court and makes the decision that two completely dissimilar jobs, both done by both men and women are worth the same rate of pay principally on the basis that more men do one job and more women do the other.

It's an utter mess.

The equality act may need adjusting, but a lot of the nonsense comes from misinterpretation, including intentional misinterpretation. The individual interpretation has been upheld by a number of court decisions. The public sector equality duty does not require the public sector to proactively promote equity. It requires them to explicitly consider how their policies affect people (individuals, not identity groups) who may have protected characteristics. They are expected to advance equality of opportunity, not outcomes. Repealing EA2010 would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

A lot of the nonsense is coming from idealogues heading up the public sector, academia and charities, fuelling the power base of often quite small pressure groups who then lure the private sector into line with promises of increased revenue or scare the private sector into line with implied threats to their businesses.

It needs changing but I agree with not throwing the baby out with the bath water.

Exactly.

We will only right the ship if we get back to treating people by the content of their character rather than their protected characteristics.

I was saying that when I started Uni.Well over 40 years ago.

There is another factor here

Does it mean having an exact ratio of the local demographics in every workplace, school, or sports team?

Getting onto a sports team or into position of power in the workplace might also include training or experience as a factor. Becoming a high court judge may take 30 or more years.

Where demographics have changed rapidly, would it be more sensible to look at the population when the e.g. judge started on the path to becoming a judge and use that as the reference point?

DEI is a system of quotas, the author is arguing against it, people should be hired on merit and ability, once equity was introduced it became about hiring representatives of a demographic regardless of whether they were suited to do the job. This has caused discrimination against groups that don't fit into the favoured demographic.

It also backfires. You hire someone female/of colour/disabled because you need to up your quota of people who are female/of colour/disabled but the only candidate that matches your quota needs doesn't quite have the skills for the job. You cross your fingers you can train them up but they don't make it, and the whole organisation around them is reinforced in their prejudice that people who are female/of colour/disabled aren't as capable as white men.

There's a very fine line between recognising and righting an injustice and being mind blowingly patronising to disadvantaged groups.

And of course then there's poor white boys, who are and have always been the most educationally disadvantaged group of all, who never feature in the quotas but are still told to be aware of their white privilege.

It does feel as if we are reaching more of a balance lately, I hope that's what's happening.,

DEI might be. The Equality Act very explicitly doesn't require quotas. Indeed while targets are allowed, quotas aren't except under very very specific circumstances under the Equality Act.** You can read it if you don't believe me.
So we can have a discussion about whether or not quotas are a good idea in actively preventing discrimination, or whether positive discrimination and equity V equality is a good thing. But then we aren't talking about the equality act.

**For example, the RAF introduced quotas/targets to try to get more representation of ethnic minorities and women. This led to a group of white male pilots successfully taking them to court because they had been illegally discriminated against according to the Equality Act. MI6 is allowed to have quotas because you need a mix of people for spy shit. So they get to make an exception but it's rare.

@TheywontletmehavethenameIwant
You hire someone female/of colour/disabled because you need to up your quota of people who are female/of colour/disabled but the only candidate that matches your quota needs doesn't quite have the skills for the job.

If you do that in the UK you are breaking the law though. So the rights/wrongs and costs to business aside it's probably not a very good idea to do it for that reason.