By Alka Sehgal-Cuthbert, The Critic
Far from guaranteeing equal treatment, the Equality Act has transformed Britain’s understanding of equality from individual rights to group identity
The Equality Act is generally understood as the law which protects us from discrimination on grounds of race, sex and religion. This is, in general, a grave misunderstanding. A new report from the Prosperity Institute, “Some More Equal Than Others”, shows that the Act has been designed to transform British society by the means of what is now known as “lawfare”. In order to do this, it reconstitutes the general public into a list of particular groups and their associated identities.
This segmentation of the citizenry has come about not as a result of popular pressure or grassroots 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.
Legislation and Democracy
Earlier anti-discrimination law was enacted in a context of wider political engagement and consensus, as suggested by levels of voter turnout. In 1964, the year before the first Race Relations Act was introduced, the turnout at the general election was around 75 per cent. By 2001 the turnout had dropped to 60 per cent, where it remained in the 2024 general election. Of course, voting is only one proxy for the democratic health of a nation. But as long ago as 2009, a British Social Attitudes paper confirmed what was already a widespread feeling of distrust and disengagement: 40 per cent of the public surveyed reported that they never trust the government. Since then, the level of trust between Britain’s politicians and the people has only moved in one predictable general direction.