Kemi Badenoch has argued that Britain took a wrong turn after the landmark Macpherson report into the racist killing of Stephen Lawrence, and said that it didn’t matter how many young black boys were stopped and searched by police.
The Conservative leader made the comments as she announced plans to scrap the obligation on public bodies to consider how they can promote equality as she seeks to head off the challenge to her party from Reform UK.
The Southport murders of three young girls, the Nottingham stabbings, and Manchester Arena bombing could all have been stopped if public authorities had not feared being called racist, Badenoch argued during a speech in which she cited the incidents as examples of where equalities law had gone too far.
“All these crimes could have been stopped if people had intervened instead of having a fear of being called racist,” she said.
Badenoch also used the murder of 18-year-old student Henry Nowak, who was falsely accused of racism by his murderer, as a reason for why she believed a wrong turn had been taken by the Macpherson report, which was prompted by the racially motivated killing of Lawrence in 1993.
“Stephen Lawrence’s murder resulted in the influential Macpherson report, a report that wanted to put right what went wrong with policing in the 1990s,” said Badenoch.
“However, in attempting to do so, it also enshrined a principle which I believe is wrong: that a racist incident is racist, if it is perceived as racist by the victim or any other person.”
“This may have made sense in a different context long ago, but today when we look at the response to Henry Nowak’s murder, and the police’s acceptance that the murderer was correct when he accused Henry of racism, it’s clear that mere accusations are being accepted as facts.”
The report had ultimately morphed into the public sector equality duty (PSED), a legal requirement obliging public bodies to think how they can improve society and promote equality in their day-to-day business, and which the Tory leader committed to scrapping.
Badenoch listed other examples where she felt public bodies including the police were prevented from doing their jobs because they were “conditioned to see minority status as victimhood”.
Referring to her party’s plans to triple stop and search incidents, she took aim at police guidance that she said explicitly stated people should be treated differently based on their protected characteristics, adding: “I’m afraid it doesn’t matter if more black boys are searched, because it means more black lives will be saved.”
A report earlier this year found that black people are up to 48 times more likely than white people to be stopped and searched by police in some of London’s best-off areas.
In questions after her speech at the Institute for Government thinktank, Badenoch said that when black boys are searched, more knives are found, and that it was the mothers of young black people who had been killed by their peers who had told her they wanted stop and search.
“I am not going to run away from an outcry and allow other people’s children to be killed just so I can have a quiet life,” she added.
Liz Kendall, the science secretary, said before the speech that Badenoch’s plan to abolish the PSED would “turn the clock back”.
She told Sky News: “What she’s saying is she wants to repeal a duty which stops pregnant women being sacked, women on maternity leave being sacked, which prevents discrimination against disabled people, which prevents discrimination on age grounds.”
Badenoch’s plans also triggered a backlash from those in the charity sector, with the disability charity Sense describing the PSED as a “commonsense safeguard” that ensured public bodies think about the impact of decisions on disabled people.
“For disabled people, that can mean the difference between being able to access school, healthcare, transport or housing, and being shut out of those services altogether,” said Harriet Edwards, director of influencing at the charity.
“We urge politicians to commit to not just keeping, but strengthening legislation which enhances the rights of disabled people.”
Badenoch also took aim at staff networks in public bodies that were set up to represent employees from black, Asian, LGBTQ+ and other communities.
“I think they should not be given time off to carry out these activities. My experience of staff networks in the civil service was that they were actually a way for some people to create a clique or a cabal who were then furthering their own personal careers at the expense of other civil servants and the staff networks ended up being bad for some of their colleagues.
“I even saw in some cases bullying of other people who didn’t share their views, so staff networks should not be anything other than social organisations.”
