HMRC’s toffs and trannies helpline

As a rule, I oppose assisted dying. That is, until the time of year arrives when I have to ring His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. As the calming hold music and passive-aggressive messages reminding me to ‘be kind to staff’ drone on, the will to live slowly leaks out of my ears. The only grain of comfort is that this is a grisly ritual millions of British citizens are forced to endure, and no one is able to jump the queue.

Which is why it came as something of a surprise to learn that there is, in fact, a fast lane through Britain’s tax bureaucracy. Not for the vulnerable. Not for the terminally ill. Not even for the small-business owners keeping the Treasury afloat. No, HMRC’s premium hotline, officially known as Public Department 1 (PD1), is reserved for MPs, royals, celebrities and anyone equipped with a Gender Recognition Certificate.

This toffs and trannies service is, apparently, reserved for ‘taxpayers whose records require greater protection’. Calls are answered roughly twice as fast as those from the pleb queue. HMRC insists the privilege is necessary because users of the PD1 service have restricted access to some digital systems owing to the sensitivity of their records. One might expect this to apply to stalking victims, or those under witness protection – but clearly these groups are not considered as vulnerable as people who claim special gender feelings. Holders of Gender Recognition Certificates have reportedly enjoyed access to the scheme since 2005, when Britain imported a European Court of Human Rights ruling on transgender rights into domestic law.

As the Telegraph reports, some users on the trans discussion boards on the social-media site Reddit have raved about the service. One stated:

‘My co-worker needed to call HMRC about some simple query. Spent two hours waiting, then their phone dropped out mid-conversation and they had to spend another two hours waiting before they resolved the issue… The next day I had to ring Special Section D to fix my tax code [with] maybe 30 seconds on hold, and it was done within three minutes of calling. Bliss.’

This is social engineering by a government department staffed by the sort of people one imagines eat paper clips and shit decimal points. HMRC is not exactly the vanguard of fashionable radicalism. That even the taxman (he/him) ended up absorbing the activist lie that trans-identifying people are somehow sacred is peculiarly chilling.

This matters. Because once the state elevates a group into a protected caste, the normal rules stop applying. For years, these institutions have been taught that the feelings of trans-identifying people outweigh everyone else’s rights, discomfort or safety concerns. No wonder so many activists now behave as though the law on single-sex spaces is optional. In a way, who can blame them? Trans loons have been told they are above the law for the best part of a decade.

In modern Britain, victimhood has become currency, and the trans movement mastered the exchange rate years ago, co-opting the clout of organisations like Stonewall when they were at their zenith. And once the sluggish machinery of the state absorbs an idea, it clings to it long after the public mood has shifted. Even after the Supreme Court clarified that sex matters in law, public institutions have failed to catch up, still taking their cues from internal staff networks and discredited trans lobby groups.

Today, government bodies that cannot answer phones, process passports or fill potholes still somehow find the time to maintain bespoke systems for gender identity.

Britain is no longer merely a country of two-tier policing. It is becoming a country of two-tier citizenship, where toffs and trannies glide past the crowds, while the rest of us are left on hold.

Jo Bartosch is co-author of Pornocracy. Order it here.