The EHRC is the latest battleground in the left’s assault on our institutions
by Andrew Tetteborn, CapX:
There is more than meets the eye to the saga of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, whose chair, Baroness Falkner, is currently under investigation following accusations of bullying and bias. The latest episode occurred last weekend, when equalities minister Kemi Badenoch intervened to make it clear that any probe must ensure she receives scrupulously fair play.
Put simply, there is every reason to think that this whole drama reflects an underlying fight to the death for political control of a supposedly arms-length governmental body devoted to the non-partisan promotion of human rights.
First, a bit of history. In 2020 the then equalities secretary, Liz Truss, determined to do something about what she saw as the Commission’s consistently leftish institutional leanings. Witness, for example, its suggestions that the demands of UN human rights activists should be taken pretty well at face value; its demand for progressive teaching on LGBT matters in all primary schools; and publications like Is Britain Fairer? essentially chiding the Government for not being egalitarian enough.
Truss appointed three new commissioners with varied, but consistently non-leftish, worldviews. Shortly afterwards, following the retirement of the Commission’s distinctly activist chair David Isaac, Truss installed Baroness Falkner, a Liberal Democrat with a no-nonsense reputation and a background in finance.
The change in emphasis at the new-look Commission fairly quickly became palpable. Its most visible recent manifestation has been the body’s rejection of the more extreme claims of the trans activists, its sympathy for women-only spaces, and its suggestion that the equality legislation should be clarified to make it clear that the word ‘sex’ means ‘biological sex’ rather than the gender a person feels comfortable in.
Related Posts
Tags
Share This
