‘Treat everybody the same’: Kemi Badenoch vows to sweep away public sector race rules warning they are ‘creating separatism’

Kemi Badenoch vowed today to eradicate the ‘perversion’ of identity politics from the public sector.

The Conservative Party leader used his speech to launch a scathing attack on apartheid rules that have helped ‘separatism and tribalism’ rise up in Britain.

Ms Badenoch insisted Britain was not a ‘racist’ country and that prejudice against white people was just as unacceptable as against ethnic minorities.

Pointing to the Henry Nowak case, she said the family of the murdered teenager wanted ‘something good’ to come from the reaction to his treatment by police.

He argued that the ‘tick the boxes’ approach to equality creates ‘perverse’ and ‘ridiculous’ results.

But Ms Badenoch lashed out at Nigel Farage, saying ‘outrage’ was not a solution and a wholesale repeal of equality legislation would leave everyone vulnerable to prejudice. He insisted he would fight against ‘identity politics’ from both the Left and the Right.

‘We do not prefer one identity group over another,’ he said.

In a major intervention, the Conservatives are committing to scrap the ‘public sector equality duty’ blamed for the spread of identity politics.

Speaking in London, Ms Badenoch said modern Britain was ‘the least racist country in the world’.

But he said there was “overcorrection” precisely because people were so eager to do the right thing. ‘It’s time to sweep up this garbage and bring back common sense,’ he added.

Ms Badenoch warned that whatever the original purpose of the mandate, it had become a minefield ‘exposing in practice almost every public decision to legal challenge’, leading to ‘ridiculous consequences’.

The public sector equality duty is a central clause of Labour’s controversial Equality Bill. It requires public bodies to consider the impact they will have on people with protected characteristics such as race and gender.

Critics warn it is being used to further divisive diversity initiatives.

Ms Badenoch said Henry’s family ‘could not have made it clearer’ that they did not want the murder to be used to divide.

He added: ‘What they want is for something good to come out of the public shock… they want the police to be an institution we can trust again.

‘And if we want to honor that wish, if we want to honor Henry’s memory, we have to ask the right question. I guess that question is: Why did the police take the accusation of racism more seriously than the allegation that Henry was stabbed?’

Ms Badenoch continued: ‘In March I gave a speech announcing that the Conservative Party would remove identity politics from all public institutions. The speech I will give today is the result of the work we have been doing for months.’

The stabbings in Nottingham, the Southport attack and the Manchester Arena bombing ‘could have been stopped if people had intervened rather than fear of being called racist’.

The Conservative leader said: ‘If security guards at Manchester Arena weren’t afraid of being accused of racial profiling we wouldn’t have seen a bomber enter the pitch unchecked.

‘If the authorities had not been concerned that black people were over-represented in mental health incidents, three people would not have been killed in Nottingham by a man who should have been detained under the Mental Health Act.

‘And if the authorities had not linked Axel Rudakubana’s violent behavior to autism, if the school principal had not been accused of racist stereotypes when he voiced concerns about him bringing a knife to school, the three little girls might still be here with us.’

Ms Badenoch added that public bodies had ‘worried about institutional racism for so long that they had become institutionally inadequate’.

The Conservative leader highlighted the case of convicted terrorist Sahayb Abu, who successfully sued the government last year after he and others were separated in prison following a brutal attack on prison guards by Hashem Abedi, brother of the Manchester Arena suicide bomber.

The case was based in part on the fact that all those discriminated against were Muslims; Abu claimed this fact breached the public sector equality duty.

Ms Badenoch described the decision as ‘madness’ and said the duty was to ‘compromise security decisions such as isolating dangerous criminals in case terrorists call us racists’.

But he is adamant that the law itself is not the problem.

Ms Badenoch lashed out at Reform, saying that when examples of public sector failure emerge the correct attitude is not to condemn institutions but to support them to improve.

‘Institutions aren’t perfect, but we want to fix a broken system, not tear it apart because we’re angry. “Don’t get me wrong, we are angry, I am angry, but anger is not a strategy, anger is not a solution,” he said.

Ms Badenoch previously told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘The Equality Act protects you, a white man, just as much as it protects me, a black woman. It is the deviants who act to protect groups that cause the problem. There is no hierarchy of groups, there is no hierarchy of properties.

‘What happens is that people assume racism is something that only happens to minority groups. I want this to go away. ‘This is something anyone can do to anyone else.’

He added: ‘We are a multi-ethnic country. Yes, white people are in the majority, but if you start creating different rules for different people, you create separatism, you create tribalism, people separate.’

Ms Badenoch said the key was to ‘treat everyone the same’ and use ‘common sense’.

‘For example, just because there are different outcomes between races does not mean that racism or discrimination is the cause,’ he said.

‘Black people are a minority in this country. But we shouldn’t have different rules for different groups.’

Police body camera footage shows innocent 18-year-old victim Henry Nowak being forcibly handcuffed by police officers after he was stabbed multiple times by a knife-obsessed Sikh man.

Ms. Badenoch brought up the example of the black police officers’ association. He insisted that people had freedom of association but there was a problem with pressure groups trying to influence policy.

‘We don’t want identity groups to do this,’ he said.

‘Would people be comfortable if there was an association of white police officers making policy for white people? I don’t think so. ‘We need to have the same rules for everyone.’

Ms Badenoch said their policies would aim to ensure ‘people have one common identity, one common culture, and that is to be British’.