A simple plan

“The only people who benefit from the argument about whether poverty, racism or sexism is worse are those who care about none of those things. As she has shown today, the minister for women and equalities is doing nothing to tackle inequality or discrimination.” - Harriet Harman MP on LabourList Liz Truss is trying to set up a hierarchy of suffering and turn back the clock on 40 years of equalities progress (politicshome.com)
 
I couldn’t agree more. A ‘hierarchy of discrimination’ which sets one group against another is something quite rightly to be condemned. It’s somewhat ironic then that Harman said this on the very day that the Labour Party set out its proposals to comply with the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s recommendations about tackling anti-Semitism in the party. This does exactly what Harman has spoken against, setting up a disciplinary procedure which privileges one group over others. The party’s ‘Action Plan’ is solely concerned with anti-Semitism, and it will be delivered with the assistance of an advisory board consisting of Jewish community representatives (I bet Jewish Voice for Labour won’t be invited to join). In this context it is odd that the Leader says in his introduction to the ‘Action Plan’ that “We will be establishing an independent process to investigate complaints of antisemitism, Islamophobia, racism, sexual harassment and any discrimination based on protected characteristics.” The Plan doesn’t say anything about other protected characteristics, nor recruiting e.g. representatives of the Muslim community to help develop the Plan. In the meantime, Covid and the prohibition on members talking about the EHRC report will help ensure that the Plan lacks wider legitimacy amongst the very people it is meant to police. Not a good look.