Racism horror as Nigel Farage says employers needs to be allowed to discriminate
Anti-racism campaigners and unions voiced their horror after Nigel Farage doubled down on his decade-old call for anti-discrimination laws to be ripped up so employers can discriminate
Nigel Farage hits back at racial discrimination laws stance in 2015 interview
Anti-racism campaigners and unions have voiced their horror after Nigel Farage said employers should be allowed to discriminate against non-British applicants.
The Reform leader reopened a decade-old row after doubling down on his belief that race equality rules should be ripped up to make it easier for bosses to reject staff because of their nationality. Experts warn this would put the UK on a deeply dangerous trajectory – while a peer accused Mr Farage of flying the flag of prejudice and discrimination.
He sparked an outcry when he told a documentary in 2015 it was “ludicrous” that bosses were not able to choose staff on the basis of their nationality – and said race equality rules should be ripped up. This week he said he does not row back in any way from the comments.
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Dr Shabna Begum, chief executive of anti-racism organisation the Runnymede Trust, told The Mirror: “This is a dangerous line to pursue, particularly as ‘Britishness’ is becoming an increasingly contested status.
“There is a worrying trend of people who believe that you must be ‘born British’ to be truly British.” Dr Begum continued: “A person’s right to work should never be determined by the colour of their skin or their nationality, if they have the right to work, that is absolute.
“This is not only a deeply frightening trajectory for those of us Brits who are deemed ‘not British enough’, despite being born and raised here, but increasingly validates a notion of ‘deservingness’ which has the remit of becoming more and more exclusionary and harmful to all of us.”
Green peer Natalie Bennett told The Mirror: “Nigel Farage has shown again his true colours – and they haven’t changed over ten years. He has made no attempt to row back from comments he made ten years ago in which he suggested that employers should be able to discriminate in favour of employing those who are British born. Instead, he appears to have doubled down.
“It is clear that whatever party Nigel Farage is in, he will always wave the flag for prejudice and discrimination.”
Since the 1965 Race Relations Act was passed in 1965, it has been illegal to treat someone less favourably because of their colour, race, or ethnic and national origin.
TUC General Secretary Paul Nowak said: “Defending bare faced discrimination is a desperate move – even for Farage.
“Working people across the UK desperately need better jobs and rising living standards – but what Farage describes is morally abhorrent and plain wrong. Reform is obsessed with a race to the bottom which would leave everyone worse off.”
And UNISON general secretary Christina McAnea told The Mirror: “Nigel Farage is no friend of working people. Along with his MPs, he’s consistently voted against every measure to improve fairness and rights at work.
“Now he wants to rip up legislation designed to stop people being discriminated against simply because of their race or where they’re from. This backwards step would do nothing to grow the economy or help the majority of people in this country.”
A decade ago, when he was UKIP leader, Mr Farage was condemned after making the comments. He told a Channel 4 documentary the UK has too much discrimination legislation.
Asked what he would get rid of, he said: “Much of it.” And he went on: “I think you should be able to choose on the basis of nationality, I do.”
He said under UKIP there would be no laws against discrimination on the grounds of race or colour, claiming: “We are colour-blind”. Mr Farage told host Trevor Phillips: “I think that the situation that we now have, where an employer is not allowed to choose between a British-born person, and somebody from Poland, is a ludicrous state of affairs.
“I would argue that the law does need changing, and that if an employer wishes to choose, or you can use the word ‘discriminate’ if you want to, but wishes to choose to employ a British-born person, they should be allowed to do so.”
On Monday he said he still believes this is the case. Responding to a question from The Mirror he said: “2015 was a general election campaign, all sorts of things get said and done in the heat of battle in general election campaigns. But I don’t in any way row back from the comments I made then. I do think we should actually put British workers first. I genuinely do.”
At the time the documentary screened, it sparked a furious response from then-Tory MP Nadhim Zahawi, who defected to Reform UK this week. At the time he said: “It’s a remark that (Hitler’s propaganda chief Joseph) Goebbels would be proud of.” And Mr Zahawi wrote: “What’s frightening is that in Farage’s Britain, people like me could be lawfully discriminated against, and British businesses would be encouraged to bin our CVs.”
