Now Labour may ban Christmas songs: Employment Rights Bill may see finish of Jingle Bells and extra sung in pubs over ‘racist’ origins

Concerns have been raised Labour‘s Employment Rights Bill could prevent people from singing Christmas songs in pubs over alleged ‘racist origins’, including festive favourites such as Jingle Bells.

Supposedly ‘offensive’ lyrics in seasonal classic songs could come under the watch the of the Government’s new workers’ rights legislation, it has been suggested. 

Even the cosy-seeming singalong Jingle Bells could be at risk, as some have suggested it has connotations of racism.

Other much-played tracks at this time of year which have faced scrutiny include Baby It’s Cold Outside, Fairytale Of New York and Do They Know It’s Christmas? 

The Government’s Employment Rights Bill, initially spearheaded by former Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, was given final approval in Parliament last week.

It had previously been caught up in a battle between the House of Commons and Lords, where the Government suffered a series of defeats.

In a bid to get the Bill passed before Parliament shut down for Christmas , Labour ministers had made a series of concessions – ditching a day-one right to protections against unfair dismissal and replaced it with a six-month qualifying period.

It also moved to scrap compensation caps for unfair dismissal, which are currently the lower of 52 weeks’ pay or £118,223.

The Bill also includes a ban on zero-hour contracts and day-one rights to statutory sick pay, was ‘the biggest boost to rights at work in a generation’.

Yet new fears have been raised about the potential impact on ‘banter’ between colleagues – including the singing of Christmas songs in bars.

Pub landlords face calls to ban ‘offensive’ lyrics while taking ‘all reasonable steps’ to protect staff from harassment by third parties.

Action could be taken if anything were thought demeaning of a ‘protected characteristic’ – including race, religion, sexual orientation and age.

Lord Toby Young, general secretary of the Free Speech Union, has previously raised concerns about a so-called ‘banter ban’.

He warned it could oblige landlords or hoteliers lead the ‘policing of harmless fun in pubs, bars and restaurants, giving the scolds and finger-waggers another pretext to stop people enjoying themselves’.

He today told the Daily Mail: ‘Labour’s banter ban won’t just affect pubs. It will ruin the atmosphere in bars, restaurants and sports stadiums as well.

‘Under the new law, employers will be obliged to take “all reasonable steps” to protect their workers from “harassment” and that includes overhearing remarks or conversations they may find offensive in virtue of their ‘protected characteristics’.

‘That may mean customers having to prove they’ve received ‘diversity training’ before being allowed in to venues, as well as pubs, restaurants and bars employing ‘banter bouncers’, ready to kick anyone out who says something non-woke.

‘For many hospitality businesses, it will be the final nail in the coffin. It’s as though the government is deliberately setting out to destroy a sector it is instinctively suspicious of.

‘Better people stay at home than go out and let their hair down. An alcohol ban will be next.’

Conservative Party chairman Kevin Hollinrake said: ‘Christmas is a time for joy and fun. But, not satisfied with hammering the hospitality sector through two disastrous budgets, Labour are now trying to ban the Christmas classics.

‘Keir Starmer and his government do not have the backbone to stand up to Angela Rayner and her disastrous Unemployment Rights Bill and so now pubs are set to be forced to censor our favourite Christmas tunes. Do Labour know it’s Christmas time at all?’

A Government spokesperson has said in response to suggestions of a ban on Christmas songs under the new legisation: ‘This is complete rubbish.

‘The Employment Rights Act will not affect anyone’s right to lawful free speech, and people will still be able to enjoy their favourite Christmas carols.’

Officials suggested that ‘upsetting remarks’ did not fall within the definition of harassment’, while workplace protections were being ‘strengthened’ to protect employees from intimidating and hostile abuse as well as sexual harassment.

Former MSNBC host Joy Reid this month shared a video to her social media which claimed to reveal the racist background of the much-loved Christmas tune Jingle Bells as a blackface minstrel tune mocking African Americans.

The video showed a young man in a full Christmas outfit standing outside of the old Simpson Tavern in Medford, Massachusetts, where the song was allegedly written.

The plaque said that the original writer of the song, James Lord Pierpont, wrote Jingle Bells in the former tavern before having it copyrighted in 1857 while living in Georgia.

A caption over the video said: ‘This plaque in Medford, MA, honors where James Lord Pierpont wrote ‘Jingle Bells’, but ignores its origins in blackface minstrelsy.’

The video added that Pierpont was in a poor financial position and turned to minstrel shows, writing ‘The One Horse Open Sleigh’ which debuted in Boston in 1857.

It claimed the song was used to ‘mock and caricature’ black people participating in winter activities.

It added that Pierpont later enlisted in the Confederate army and that the song was ‘whitewashed and happy myths about its creation became popular’.

Reid captioned her on post on the video with: ‘American history is a horror show’, followed by several red emoji exclamation marks.

The latest video shared to Instagram leans on a research paper from 2017 by Kyna Hamill, a Boston university theater historian.

In her paper, Hamill said: ‘The legacy of Jingle Bells is one where its blackface and racist origins have been subtly and systematically removed from its history.’

Hamill began researching the origins of the song to help settle a dispute between Massachusetts and Georgia – both of which claim to be the place where Pierpont composed the song.

In the course of her research, Hamill discovered a playbill indicating that Jingle Bells was first performed under the title One Horse Open Sleigh in blackface, for a minstrel show at Ordway Hall in Boston in 1857.

She wrote that traces of the song’s blackface minstrel origins can be found in the music and lyrics, as well as the ‘elements of ‘male display,’ boasting, and the unbridled behavior of the male body onstage’.

She said: ‘Its origins emerged from the economic needs of a perpetually unsuccessful man, the racial politics of antebellum Boston, the city’s climate, and the intertheatrical repertoire of commercial blackface performers moving between Boston and New York.

‘Although One Horse Open Sleigh, for most of its singers and listeners, may have eluded its racialised past and taken its place in the seemingly unproblematic romanticization of a normal ‘white’ Christmas, attention to the circumstances of its performance history enables reflection on its problematic role in the construction of blackness and whiteness in the United States.’

According to the Historical Marker Database, Pierpont had served as a music director of a Unitarian Church in Savannah where some believe he penned the song.

In 2022 a New York school banned students from singing the song over fears it was performed as a minstrel song.

Council Rock Primary School banned the festive favorite from its music curriculum over its ties.

Instead, the school replaced the festive classic with other songs that don’t have ‘the potential to be controversial or offensive’, officials said at the time.

It was decided on after staff read the 2017 paper on the song by Hamill. Many in the community took issue with the ban and argued against it.

Other Christmas songs proving newly controversial in recent years include the much-covered Baby It’s Cold Outside, written in 1944 by Frank Loesser and used in the film Neptune’s Daughter starring Esther Williams and Ricardo Montalban five years later.

The Oscar-winning song, about a man trying to persuade a woman to stay on a cold winter’s night, has been banned by some radio stations. 

Popstar John Legend rewrote the lyrics for a duet with Kelly Clarkson on a Christmas album he released in 2019.

In a Vanity Fair cover story, he told how his version had a ‘newfound sensitivity’ in the MeToo era, with the original seen by some as having date-rape connotations.

He shared a verse with Kelly singing, ‘What will my friends think’, as he replied, ‘I think they should rejoice’.

He answers her query of, ‘If I have one more drink’, with: ‘It’s your body and your choice.’

The original lyrics include responses of ‘Baby, it’s cold outside’ to a female singer’s protestations such as ‘I simply must go’ and ‘The answer is no’.

Loesser’s daughter Susan said in 2018 that her father ‘would be furious’ that his lyrics, in today’s climate, have taken on connotations they were never meant to when he penned them in the 1940s. 

She said of the criticisms following MeToo sexual abuse and harassment csontroversies, ‘Absolutely, I get it’.

But she added: ‘I think it would be good if people looked at the song in the context of the time. It was written in 1944.

‘It was a different time.’

She told of being upset about the furore because ‘it’s a song my father wrote for him and my mother to sing at parties’. 

The song has been covered by the likes of Michael Bublé, Idina Menzel and James Taylor.

There was also a duet version by Tom Jones and Cerys Matthews.

Other festive songs which have been criticised include Band Aid’s 1984 Do They Known It’s Christmas?, accused of being condescending to people living in Africa and the Pogues’ Fairytale Of New York for the lyric: ‘You scumbag, you maggot – yoy cheap lousy faggot.’