The far-right Institute for Economic Affairs (IEA) has not been slow to jump on the Trump bandwagon. Yesterday I got an email from it suggesting that:
- Over the past six decades our political, philosophical and legal approaches to discrimination have evolved, moving from a laissez-faire attitude to complex legislation that addresses both 'direct' and 'indirect' discrimination.
You can guess what came next. The IEA wants to roll back legislation protecting minorities from discrimination in this country, following Trump's one that diversity, equity and inclusion programmes are not just illiberal but are harmful to white, male, Christian in name only (Chino) men.
They argued:
- This paper makes the case that while liberals can accept outlawing direct discrimination under the concept of equality before the law, or a laissez faire approach, going further than these approaches will invariably lead to bad outcomes.
Their conclusion is:
- The Equality Act should return to the roots of earlier legislation, by outlawing direct discrimination focused on individuals rather than remove or reduce gaps between groups. The rest of the Act should be removed from the statute books.
- This would be a genuinely liberal but strong anti-discrimination agenda.
I wonder how Jews feel about this? The IEA proposal would very clearly legalise anti-semitism, amongst other abuses. I am utterly opposed to that happening. Why would the IEA want to permit it, I wonder? Their report implies that anti-semitism is only a left-wing activity. That only compounds the nastiness of their claims by associating it with an obvious lack of truthfulness.
So, what is the IEA doing here? Whatever it is, it is very dangerous for Jews and a great many others in this country.
We need to be ready for this issue to go mainstream, probably with Labour support. Wes Streeting is already making very uncomfortable comments about diversity. The toxin of racism has been released by Trump. There will be many who want to jump on the bandwagon.
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Muslims, its about muslims (& probably women/babies), not jews. The category error that the IEA imbeciles make is intelligence and capacity to deploy it is not a function of sex, race or religion. But if you have a bunch of chinos in a company (do they wear them as well?) – the tendency will be to select …a chino. Arguably, the existing legislation tries to help the chinos – by preventing them form confusing sex/race/religion with the ability to function in a given role in a given company.
It is sad, but perhaps not surprising that the IEA commits this error and indeed, it is illustrative of what happens when a group of chinos, of a right whinge tendency, open their traps before engaging what small mental capacity they have.
I’m with Mike again, but all I see is a false intellectual argument to cut efforts to tackle discrimination that will cut budgets and operational costs. for business.
Thank you and well said, Richard.
My only quibble is with saying Trump released this toxin.
I, and some others, consider the BBC to have for decades been poisoning the atmosphere by associating immigrants with bad news.
On the breakfast news yesterday, the BBC showed a white woman officer, from the back, approaching someone blurred, but the black turban and beard were unmistakable. In the run up to Brexit, it was about east Europeans, which led to a complaint by a Tory MP of Polish origin. Decades before, it was about the Irish.
During Brexit, that anti-Irish sentiment came up again, especially on 12 July, which led to a complaint by a Catholic Tory junior minister.
Last Saturday evening, on an feature about the Balkans, “Europe’s Last Frontier”, Katya Adler talked about illegal migrants coming by boat from Albania to grow cannabis. She failed to explain that, only after a process, can one be declared illegal. This happens regularly.
Richard and readers may not be aware of the story to the photos of the Southport assailant and, decades ago, Winston Silcott. A series of shots are arranged, so that a particular vicious looking one is used. For Silcott, he was woken up during the night and ordered to dress. Out of shot were two officers holding up his hands and letting go, so that one would assume an arrogance.
Thirty years ago, on the BBC, French journalist Christine Ockrent talked about the casual racism at the BBC when her host started throwing stones.
Thanks
Thank you, Richard.
Yesterday evening, I caught up with a west country gentry and City friend. The occasion was to check how things were in his neck of the woods. Farmers blocked the centre of Aylesbury from mid-morning to mid-afternoon yesterday. Around supper, one could hear the tractors on go slow towards the rural hinterland.
My friend is on the Corbynite left, but knows many peers in Reform or switching from the Tories to Reform. It’s not uncommon in rural areas. He reports that Reform will target immigrants and associated matters like equality, but not address the problems of this country. The regional leaders, including a local earl, are quite open about it. Why? Reform’s donors and the leading members have money stashed overseas, if not based overseas themselves, and treat the UK as a colony. The UK has replaced the former colonies.* London and their country retreats are often their only bases in the colony.
*One prominent Brexiteer and, so far still, Tory is from the west country and married to a woman with estates in Kent, the Soke and Yorkshire. The family trust, which shares the name of a village in Yorkshire and an art gallery in Cambridge, is based in the Caribbean. The family wants some of its Malton tenant farmers out, so they can install a solar farm.
Further evidence that the agenda of the IEA is not economics. They seem to have a very broad interpretation of “Economic Affairs” to mean absolutely anything that they disagree with.
The ‘leave’ campaign in the UK’s ‘brexit’ referendum pulled off a neat trick. Instead of explicitly scapegoating a national or ethnic group – which most Brits would now find unacceptable – they made a shibboleth of ‘the EU’. Racist, xenophobic? – not us, we’re just talking about an institution. Now the US far right is trying to pull the same trick with ‘DEI’…
“The IEA proposal would very clearly legalise anti-semitism, amongst other abuses.”
This a big claim, and you provided no explanation as to why this would be the case. It would help your case if you do.
If discrimination against a group of Jews as Jews was no longer illegal – as the IEA proposal suggests would be the case to me – then of course it legalises anti-Semitism. Tell me why I am wrong.
In a long immersion in Labour from 1970-2019 I never encountered antisemitism. I did encounter it in a so-called ‘Marxist’ tendency now firmly ensconced in the far right libertarians, and often amongst the right wing Tories. Within the Labour party I did encounter some homophobia, but above all, rampant misogyny and veiled racism. The removal of any legal restraints will make things worse than they have been, especially since 2016. The use of the term ‘working people’ is already a normalised discrimination, and no doubt the racism/misogyny of many current politicos will seep into mainstream.
It obviously is, right now…
Thank you, both.
Further to the dear leader’s headache in the north west, the suggestion is that HQ has known about it for a year, but sat on the information until it became useful. It’s like when a studio traded the dirt on Rory Calhoun, so that Rock Hudson could be protected. If Gwynne and Oliver are Calhoun, who’s Hudson? I’m sure readers can guess.
Mail online 11th February: Health Secretary Wes Streeting has vowed he will declare war on NHS ‘wokery’ and ‘nonsense’ – while its chairman has branded parts of the service ‘unsafe’.
Mr Streeting said the health service has got to ‘stop doing daft nonsense’, such as erasing the word ‘woman’ from ‘many NHS documents’ and a member of staff tweeting that her job involved ‘anti-whiteness’.
He said the NHS ‘can’t afford to be distracted by ideologues’, writing in the Sun on Sunday: ‘I have told the NHS to get back to basics.’
That’s Streeting for you.
The man who called me hysterical the last time we engaged.
I am in no way a defender of Streeting or Lino and do not want to see DEI initiatives reduced but I recently had occasion to request all of my medical records, which took a long time to come. I was very surprised to read that I had attended a Well **** Clinic and other references to my gender (an, male) had been erased through all of my records going back 25 years, which struck me as a totally inappropriate and wasteful use of NHS resources.
Really?
I have not heard of this happening. Nor does it make medical sense.
What I dont understand and it also applies to Trumps moves on corruption, is why be so blatant?
Clearly many of these things will upset people, some of whom might be minded to grab a (metaphorical or potentially literal) pitchfork
No subtelty about it at all