Politics
Braverman is in step with other Reform ghouls
In amongst Reform’s patently ridiculous announcement of its new ‘shadow cabinet’, the far-right party has announced Suella Braverman as its education, skills and equalities spokesperson.
In her first move as part of the new role, Braverman announced that Reform would rip up the Equality Act on day one. You’d think an equalities spokesperson would be less zealously committed to legalising discrimination, but that’s par for the course for the far-right party.
Braverman whines about diversity
As the Canary’s Rachel Charlton-Dailey noted, Reform aren’t the official opposition, and thus have no right to be running around announcing shadow cabinets anyway. The whole thing is a PR exercise for egomaniac Nigel Farage.
In a continuation of the bizarre, shortly after being awarded this imaginary role Braverman announced that her party would eliminate the role of equalities minister altogether. She then set off on a rant about the UK being:
ripped apart by diversity, equality and inclusion policies.
Braverman also stated that her (new) party would repeal the Equality Act on its first day of office. By way of reasoning, the ex-Tory minister claimed that she wanted to get rid of the:
divisive notion of protected characteristics.
As a quick reminder, those divisive protected characteristics are age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation.
‘A sledgehammer to hard-won rights’
Parliament instituted the Equality Act back in 2010. It prohibits the victimisation of individuals on the basis of those seven protected characteristics. It forms the basis of anti-discrimination law in the UK, preventing – for example – an employer from sacking somebody upon finding out the employee is gay.
As such, it’s not exactly hard to see why a party founded on the idea of bashing immigrants wouldn’t be a fan. However, Braverman also claimed that she didn’t want to eliminate workplace protections altogether.
In spite of that flimsy reassurance, the Trades Union Congress was quick to call Reform out on its game. TUC general secretary Paul Nowak said:
It’s official – Reform UK think discrimination should be legal.
Scrapping the Equality Act would be a sledgehammer to hard-won rights working people fought for over generations.
If you’re discriminated against because you’re a woman, black, disabled, pregnant or gay – that’s fine with them.
This is a blank cheque for bad employers to mistreat their staff.
And it wouldn’t stop there. Scrapping the Equality Act would just be the start.
From ripping up equality protections, to backing fire-and-rehire, to opposing a ban on zero-hours contracts, Reform UK have made it clear whose side they’re on – and it’s not working people.
Hypocrisy and lies
Braverman herself is hardly a stranger to trampling over human rights. As the Tory home secretary, she was a vocal promoter of the infamous Illegal Migration Act. In a clear breach of the European Convention on Human Rights, the act would have enabled the government to transport unlawful migrants to Rwanda.
In spite of her own parents’ status as immigrants, Braverman named immigrants an:
existential challenge for the political and cultural institutions of the West.
Of course, the ex-Tory is no stranger to rank hypocrisy either. She once insisted that the Conservative Party needed to do “everything we can” to win Tory voters back from Reform, before slipping off to join the far-right party instead.
Then again, Farage himself previously vowed that his retirement home for washed-up Tories would never take in Suella Braverman.
So, to recap, Reform didn’t want to take in Braverman, and Braverman wanted to win votes back from Reform. Then she joined the far-right party after all.
Following that, Reform appointed her to the post of equalities spokesperson, so Braverman promptly announced that she’d abolish her own job – and the public’s protection against discrimination into the bargain.
Is anybody else’s head spinning here?
Featured image via the Canary