Photo by Yui Mok/PA Images via Getty Images
The equalities minister is playing a dangerous game in ginning up false grievances.
Racism and sexism have become ‘normalised’ in Britain, asserted equalities minister Bridget Phillipson last week. Speaking on the Guardian’s Politics Weekly podcast, to substantiate these claims, she cited the ‘cesspit’ of social media and supposedly ‘racist’ statements made by the Conservatives’ Nick Timothy and Reform UK’s Robert Jenrick. Where once such speech would be censured as unacceptable, she claimed, there are now no consequences.
While you might be inclined to yawn at this ham-fisted attempt to resurrect the heady days of #MeToo and Black Lives Matter, Phillipson’s desire to fan the charred embers of the Great Awokening deserves a more serious rebuke. As I noted on LBC, her claims are both illiterate and irresponsible.
Continue reading the entire piece here at Spiked (paywall)
______________________
Eric Kaufmann is an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a professor of politics at Birkbeck College, University of London.