Farage: “Scrap race equality laws”

Just a day after it was announced that there has been an increase of 50% Black youth unemployment, when white youth unemployment is going down, the Ukip Leader Nigel Farage has said if he was in Government he would scrap race equality employment laws, so that employers could racially discriminate who they did or did not want to employ.

Shadow Justice Minister Sadiq Khan stated that Farage had shown ‘breathtaking ignorance, whilst Downing St said it had ‘grave concerns’ over the comments by the Ukip leader.

Speaking in an interview with Trevor Phillips on his proposals that would lead to rampant discrimination Farage said:

I would argue that the law – race legislation - 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 so.”

The report in yesterday’s findings that employers are already finding ways to racially discriminate is having a profound effect on a generation of young Black men, the vast majority of those will already be British-born.

These latest remarks are perhaps the most troubling the Ukip leader has ever delivered, because given that he has access to all the facts, all the data about discrimination, how it works and who is affected by it, he is nonetheless unequivocally stating 'I will legalise discrimination'.

For a mainstream party political leader, and an elected European parliamentarian to say this and not be in an instant cast into a Nick Griffin-esque mold of a deeply bigoted individual demonstrates just how mainstream the toxic immigration and racial debate has become.

Mahatma Gandhi said almost 100 years ago: "a measure of any civilisation is how we treat its weakest members"- new migrants, the poor, the disenfranchised.

Today is a deeply sad day for British politics.

Simon Woolley