Multiculturalist Ideology (Part One): A Rationale For Race War Politics
An Examination Of The Logic of Multiculturalism
An Examination Of The Logic of Multiculturalism
Suella Braverman, the Tory Attorney General for England and Wales since 2020, recently published an article in the Daily Mail:
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It is all too easy to view the past through the prism of the present and then use the new orthodoxy to settle old scores. Today that orthodoxy is called ‘Diversity, Equality and Inclusion’.
The new ‘DEI’ sector came about as a by-product of the rights culture created by a combination of New Labour’s Human Rights Act and the Equality Act.
The plight of women like Maya Forstater, who lost her job after tweeting that transgender women could not change their biological sex, are all part of this long tail of Blairism.
Her legal fight ultimately ended in a triumph for common sense and freedom of speech. But how did we get to a point where stating the facts of biology could get you sacked?
Whenever ministers point out these problems, people – quite rightly – ask: ‘What are you doing about it?’.
And so, as the Attorney General, I ordered my officials to brief me on the diversity training going on in the Government Legal Department.
I was horrified to discover that hundreds of government lawyers spent nearly 2,000 hours of their taxpayer-funded time last year attending lectures on ‘micro-incivilities’, different ‘lived experiences’ and ‘how to be a straight ally’, courtesy of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights charity Stonewall.
The experts on ‘white privilege’ who shared their insights were cited as authoritative but they all subscribed to the left-wing view on race, gender and sexuality which permeated their training materials.
I’d encourage other ministers to ask to see their departments’ diversity programmes and scrutinise the value for money they offer. After all, the ‘diversity’ agenda thrives in darkness.
Government lawyers are told that if a black person says something is offensive, then it is offensive, and they don’t have a right to question it. How does that fit with the rule of law, or due process?
This kind of thinking is harmful in other departments, but in legal cases it’s downright dangerous. It does nothing to create solidarity and encourage support but rather keeps emphasising difference, creates a sense of ‘otherness’ and pits different groups against each other.
Well, I’ve told my officials to scrap it. We really must get serious about taking on this divisive mindset and call it out for what it is: a new religion with a new priestly caste.
Some zealots believe in it. Like the witch-finders of the Middle Ages, they don the outfit of the inquisitor and never tire of rooting out unbelievers. Others wear the priestly robes to ward off their rivals, while still others nod along and recite the creed because they are too scared to dissent.
None of these approaches are acceptable in modern Britain. I’m all for building an inclusive workplace which is meritocratic and welcoming, but to focus relentlessly on dividing us into different cohorts rather than on building camaraderie based on unifying values is misguided.
This is something Liz Truss has been very good on. She told the Tory conference that we ‘reject the zero-sum game of identity politics, we reject the illiberalism of cancel-culture, and we reject the soft bigotry of low expectations’.
That’s the kind of Conservative Party I want to be a member of. It’s the kind of Britain that I believe in.
In government, I’ve seen her working hard to fight this pernicious identity politics, which is stifling our potential just as surely as the high tax burden. I’m especially glad she’s committed to scrapping diversity jobs across Whitehall.
Britain needs a lot of things but it certainly doesn’t need woke commissars policing our thoughts. We need to worry less about what people say on Twitter, and more about ensuring passports arrive on time, GP appointments are available when needed, and the police turn up when you’ve been burgled.
Diversity jobs may have been created with good intentions, but it’s clear they are now part of the problem, not the solution.
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When running for the leadership contest for the Tory Party, Suella Braverman drew attention to the problems posed by the European Court of Human Rights, and published an item on her campaign page about the matter:
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The Article originally appeared in The House.
I count myself lucky to be British. We have inherited a set of rights that are second to none. As Attorney General – and as prime minister – I would proudly protect this inheritance.
MPs will need no reminding that this Parliament was an early adopter of many of the rights now in the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
Lord Sumption tells us that the ECHR is a “dynamic treaty”, its substance changing over time. The result is “to transfer an essentially legislative power to an international body standing outside the constitutional framework of the United Kingdom”.
The truth is that transferring decision-making powers means you might get decisions you don’t like. That is what we saw recently with the grounding of the Rwanda flight. Our Supreme Court agreed that it was legal for the flight to depart. Strasbourg did not.
Some believe I am overstating the problem – and overengineering the solution. Sir Robert Buckland describes leaving the ECHR as “using a political sledgehammer to crack a legal nut”. Unfortunately, this does not take account of what is “seen” and “unseen” (to borrow from Frédéric Bastiat). What was seen is that a handful of individuals were ready to be flown out, only to be blocked by domestic injunctions relying on the Strasbourg ruling. What is unseen is the hundreds of economic migrants that were discounted before that.
This and other examples, like the blocked deportations of violent foreign offenders, demonstrate this “dynamic” element. The Strasbourg court took a Convention designed to prevent the likes of the Shoah [holocaust] and turned it into something that applies much more broadly.
What is the answer? Buckland’s suggestion is to renegotiate the ECHR. This would require a consensus between 46 member states, most of which simply don’t see the ECHR as a problem, because of their more permissive socio-legal cultures. He highlights the Brighton Declaration – but glosses over the fact it mostly made procedural changes, leaving the substantive mission creep of Strasbourg untouched.
Some say – in hushed tones – why don’t we stay in and quietly breach it? Sometimes this is given the tag “principled defiance”, linked to what we did with prisoner voting. There, we were defending a single policy, eventually agreeing a fudge. With asylum, we are talking about hundreds of individual decisions per week.
At present we don’t have clear legal powers within the Nationality and Borders Act to act contrary to the ECHR, since courts will construe any powers so they align with Convention rights. Even if we tried, the Strasbourg court would pass a Rule 39 injunction (as with the Rwanda flight), and a UK court would likely mirror that. It would be clear to anyone that our Rwanda policy had no hope of actually deporting anyone, and the number of illegal migrants would grow. We would be incapable of meeting our 2019 manifesto promise to “take control of our borders”.
To fulfil that promise, we need to leave the ECHR, and retain the Human Rights Act, as strengthened in Dominic Raab’s British Bill of Rights. This would not harm the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement, devolution, or the EU trade deal. The Belfast Agreement stipulates that rights should be embedded in law – that was achieved by the Human Rights Act. Likewise, devolution legislation refers to the rights in the HRA itself. Lord Frost was very careful not to bind us to the ECHR in his Brussels negotiations. We would make a special regime for Channel crossings, setting out eligibility rules for transfer and setting up a scheme for safe legal routes for refugees applying from overseas.
Leaving the ECHR is the only solution which solves the problem, and is entirely consistent with international law. It puts us in good company – with Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. With like-minded democracies we could draft a Common Law Rights Charter, encouraging others to make a political commitment to stand up for rights globally.
Taking this step will be controversial. Our establishment can’t conceive of a world without the ECHR. But if you ask Commonwealth lawyers or legislators from outside Europe, “would you want your Parliament to be second-guessed by a foreign court?” Invariably, they would say “no”. Once and for all, we should truly bring rights home.
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A number of issues arise from what Suella Braverman has said.
The ‘new religion’ or ‘long tail of Blairism’ is in fact political correctness (the mechanism for the implementation of cultural Marxism). This creed has been steadily advancing across the West since WWII, but especially since the 1960s. Today, it is the dominant political orthodoxy. ‘Diversity, Equality and Inclusion’ (DEI) is more recent and is a product of the Tory Government. It is the Tories who have happily funded this with taxpayers’ monies.
Suella Braverman is correct to cite the influence of the Human Rights Act and Equality Act, both introduced by Labour. The Tories have had 12 years to repeal this legislation, but have chosen to do nothing.
Stonewall, a favourite group of the Tories, should be defunded at once. They should no longer be able to draw upon taxpayers’ monies in any way.
The fomentation of division and hatred is deliberate. Suella Braverman’s comment that ‘Diversity jobs may have been created with good intentions’ is naive. The ideology of political correctness is malevolent. More than 100 million people were killed in the name of communism in the 20th century.
Suella Braverman is correct in asserting that we will not be able to renegotiate the ECHR, and such a suggestion is simple an attempt to dodge doing anything meaningful. The UK should leave the ECHR at once.
Suella Braverman is delusional to place any faith in Dominic Raab’s new British Bill of Rights. English judges need to have their powers curbed to stop them from thwarting British interests and wallowing in political correctness. Dominic Raab’s bill does not offer that.
What is needed is a compete end to mass immigration. There should be no ‘safe legal routes’ for asylum seekers to get into the UK. They should seek safety in their own or neighbouring countries.
Of importance is Suella Braverman’s revelation that the Nationality and Borders Act is subordinate to the ECHR and that: ‘It would be clear to anyone that our Rwanda policy had no hope of actually deporting anyone, and the number of illegal migrants would grow. We would be incapable of meeting our 2019 manifesto promise to “take control of our borders”.’ In other words, Priti Patel, the Home Secretary responsible, is a con artist and her Act and Rwanda policy are con jobs.
Notwithstanding the impending appointment of a new Tory leader, once the laborious party election is concluded, with a new administration, Patel has seen fit to try and negotiate the payment of increased sums to the French concerning the cross-Channel invasion and has abolished police checks on foreign nationals living in the UK (with the obvious security implications). The Tory aim is to legalise illegal immigration and to increase mass immigration (see here and here). Patel is not acting in British interests and should be sacked at once.
Suella Braverman has spoken out to highlight the problems and the need to repeal damaging legislation and the need to exit the ECHR. But she does not properly recognise the full scale of the problem, or what is needed in response.
The government needs to attack political correctness in its totality, see here.