Top civil servants should remain “completely apolitical” and should not be allowed to express support for Black Lives Matter, Jacob Rees-Mogg has argued.
The Brexit minister said permanent secretaries should be allowed to celebrate events like the Queen’s Jubilee and Remembrance Sunday but not publicly back the anti-racism movement.
Asked about the historic use of the #blacklivesmatter hashtag by two permanent secretaries, Stephen Lovegrove and Jonathan Slater, Mr Rees-Mogg said: “Permanent secretaries should be completely apolitical. They can remember state events, they can remember Armistice Day and Remembrance Sunday and the Queen’s Jubilee.”
Mr Slater, a former top civil servant at the Department for Education, used the hashtag in a social media post in 2020 while Sir Stephen had spoken on the issue in the same year, saying “systemic racial inequality is not unique to America but also has deep roots within UK society...”
