Kemi Badenoch has built her career on speaking what appear to be plain truths about the politics of race in Britain. She has pointed out that the British experience is very different from that in America, and yet a lot of the assumptions about American racism have been imported into this country.
She has caused controversy by saying that Britain is one of the least racist countries in the world – which is true, and something to be proud of, but it does not mean that there are still not terrible injustices suffered by groups defined by the colour of their skin.
That is why The Independent argues that the quest for true equality of opportunity and of respect must be intensified, rather than abandoned, as Nigel Farage proposes.
It is part of the reason the Equality Act 2010, one of the last acts of the previous Labour government, was such an important milestone in protecting people from discrimination not just on grounds of race but on those of religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, age and disability.
The act brought together all equalities law in a single, consistent instrument – and it is one of its strengths that there was no serious attempt in 14 years of Conservative government to undo it.
The only reason Ms Badenoch made a speech today proposing to amend the act is that she feels under pressure from Mr Farage – some of whose supporters see the act as the foundation document of a conspiracy to discriminate against white people.
This has become a live political issue because of the murder of Henry Nowak, whom the police initially assumed was the perpetrator of a racist attack rather than victim of an act of apparently mindless violence. This politicisation is very much against the wishes of Mr Nowak’s family, who have asked that his death not be used to promote division, but Mr Farage’s exploitation of the tragedy has forced the other parties to respond.
Ms Badenoch’s response should be commended for its sensible and responsible tone. She has called for a review of the case, and asked whether police training may have led to officers being too ready to believe the untrue story of Mr Nowak’s attacker.
But her speech today, while suggesting an improvement to the Equality Act, was in effect a strong defence of the principles behind it. She said that it “should be a shield, not a sword”.
“What Reform don’t understand is that anti-discrimination legislation protects us all,” she said, “because it is race and sex that are protected, not being Black or white, male or female. The Equality Act protects a white man as much as a Black woman.”
The proposal of her speech – to abolish the duty on public bodies to consider how they promote equality – is, in fact, a side issue. She cited only one example of when this duty has appeared to confound common sense. When she was local government minister, she said, she was advised that she might be sued if she tried to “allocate more money to councils who had greater social care responsibilities”, because the policy might contravene her duty under the act as it “would disproportionately benefit white, elderly, Christian people”.
It is not clear that this advice was correct, or that it prevented the government making the right choices about local government finances.
But Ms Badenoch’s speech performed a public service, because the most important part of it was her powerful defence of the Equality Act and her desire to make it work better.
This was the most constructive contribution to the public debate on this subject since Robert Kenyon, Reform’s candidate in the Makerfield by-election, was criticised by Sarah Wakefield, the Green candidate, for wanting to scrap the Equality Act on BBC Question Time last week. Mr Kenyon retreated so fast, we could hardly see his heels: all the protections for women and other groups would be transposed to new anti-discrimination law, he said.
Congratulations to Ms Badenoch and Ms Wakefield: they have Mr Farage’s simplistic slogans on the run. As soon as they have to face the test of the ballot box, Reform suddenly agrees that everyone deserves protection from discrimination. That is progress.
