Labour’s equality laws are backfiring for the Left
When the Equality Act was introduced in 2010, Gordon Brown, then the prime minister, hailed it as "modern route to social mobility" that would help those "working their way up from very little".
The landmark legislation aimed to strengthen workers' rights by codifying the UK's various discrimination laws into a single set of rules. It offered legal protection from mistreatment based on nine protected characteristics including age, sex, race and disability .
At the time, it was condemned by some on the Right as an attempt at social engineering that would lead to a flurry of spurious legal claims. Critics warned it would entrench "political correctness" into British law.
Yet in recent years, some on the Right have come to love the act. A new wave of claimants have used the law to argue that they are being discriminated against for what some would see as "anti-woke" views. They include a variety of people, from gender-critical activists to members of Reform UK.
"The original cases that came through were more on the Left side," says Elliot Hammer, a partner at Branch Austin McCormick who specialises in Equality Act cases.
"But what you find is that if you can see the Left-wing cause being protected, it normally means that the Right-wing cause should be protected too."
Gordon Brown hailed the Equality Act as a 'modern route to social mobility' - Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
To some observers, this is a welcome development.
"We are pleased that balance is slowly being restored and reality, once again, trumps ideological extremism," says Kate Barker, the chief executive of the LGB Alliance.
Her campaign group has supported a series of Equality Act cases brought forward by those with gender-critical views.
The LGB Alliance played a key role in fighting the case that eventually saw the Supreme Court rule that the word "sex" refers to biological sex rather than gender under the Equality Act in April last year – a ruling now being defied by councils in London run by Labour, the Green Party and the Liberal Democrats.
However, critics of the Equality Act continue to argue the law is fuelling divisive identity politics in Britain, regardless of the specific ideologies involved in the case.
A key moment in the rise of Right-leaning Equality Act cases was a 2019 case brought by Maya Forstater, a tax expert and economist.
Forstater argued she was discriminated against by the Centre for Global Development for her trans-critical views. The landmark case, which she won on appeal, eventually established that gender-critical views qualify as protected under the philosophical beliefs provision of the act.
Maya Forstater's case was a key moment in the rise of Right-leaning Equality Act cases - Belinda Jiao
The Forstater ruling led to a series of similar cases from trans-critical activists, including one from barrister Allison Bailey, a co-founder of the LGB Alliance, who sued her chambers, Garden Court Chambers, after she was investigated for criticising the LGBT charity Stonewall on Twitter.
Bailey was ultimately awarded £22,000 in 2022 after an employment tribunal ruled she was discriminated against for her own gender-critical beliefs. The barrister is pursuing a claim against Stonewall too.
These victories have opened the door to a broader type of claims from those on the Right.
"The gender-critical belief cases have really kicked off the anti-woke cases," Hammer says.
One example is Kristie Higgs, who worked as an administrator at a primary school in Gloucestershire and was fired for sharing posts on Facebook about sex education in schools. The posts claimed schools were "brainwashing" children into believing "same-sex marriage is exactly the same as traditional marriage."
Higgs later won her case that she had been unlawfully discriminated against for her Christian beliefs.
In another case, Patrick Lee, an actuary , won a case against the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA) over claims he was discriminated against for his anti-Islam views. Lee was subject to a four-year investigation by the IFoA after he suggested Islam was "evil" on X, formerly Twitter. It resulted in him being banned by the professional body and fined £23,000.
However, an employment tribunal later ruled his "Islam-critical" views should be protected under the Equality Act.
Sean Corby sued Acas after he was investigated for posts on Yammer, a social network, in which he criticised "woke" views about racism, which he said were "divisive". A tribunal ruled that such views should be protected under the Equality Act too.
The Equality Act is also being used to challenge diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives directly.
Sophie Corcoran, a GB News commentator, is challenging the Bar Council's 10,000 Black Interns scheme, claiming it discriminates against white people and is unlawful under the 2010 law.
Hammer says the "anti-woke" cases that have succeeded are mostly "big ticket items".
"What you've got to remember is that often times it's only because these people are able to raise lots of money," he says.
Some high-profile culture war cases brought under the Equality Act have managed to attract the support of well-funded groups or individuals, including JK Rowling, the author of Harry Potter.
The author donated £70,000 to For Women Scotland, a trans-critical campaign group, in support of a landmark case at the Supreme Court seeking to declare that men cannot become women.
The JK Rowling Women's Fund also specifically bankrolls women bringing cases forward under the Equality Act, although it does not provide information on which cases it has backed.
The Conservatives have called for an overhaul of the Equality Act by scrapping the "public sector equality duty", which requires public bodies such as the NHS to advance "equality of opportunity" for those with protected characteristics.
The clause, which was introduced in 2023, means public sector organisations must consider the ways those with protected characteristics are affected by their policies and services.
Claire Coutinho, who was the shadow equalities minister before the recent reshuffle, says that the Equality Act has protected "those who believe biological sex is real". However, she says it has also "veered away from being an act which protects everyone equally from discrimination into an act which is invoked by those pushing dangerous and divisive identity politics".
"That's why we are proposing reforms that maintain protections against discrimination but also the basic principle that we are all equal before the law," Coutinho says.
Reform UK has vowed to scrap what it calls the "Orwellian" Equality Act.
Writing in The Telegraph , Suella Braverman said the law had created "a shift away from the timeless British principle of equal treatment under neutral law towards something far more subjective, interventionist and, ironically, unequal".
'The Equality Act should protect everybody'
Yet that hasn't stopped Reform's own members turning to the act. Dan Cooper, a former Reform UK candidate , is pursuing a case against international law firm CMS after he was fired from the company last year for posting "I hate Islam" on social media.
Cooper says his own experiences as an HR executive at CMS made him sceptical of the Equality Act and the way it has come to be interpreted in the corporate world.
However, he says that he's willing to use the law to protect his own rights under it.
"If it's there, it should be used for everyone," Cooper says.
Daniel Matchett, a Reform councillor, separately launched a legal case last month against the NHS, his former employer, claiming it discriminated against him because of his political beliefs.
"The Equality Act should protect everybody," Matchett says. "The Equality Act protects beliefs and my philosophical beliefs led me to join Reform UK. If one's belief is a belief then that should be protected, whatever that may be."
His case against the NHS was recently delayed as there wasn't a judge available for the hearing.
The rise of these cases has come against the backdrop of a broader increase in the number of employment tribunal cases in the UK. They have risen from 17,005 in 2016-17 to 34,386 in 2023-24, according to figures from campaign group Don't Divide Us.
It has led to major backlogs in the employment tribunals, which often means claimants have to wait years for their cases to be heard.
Hammer, the Branch Austin McCormick lawyer, who is representing Matchett, says: "The tribunal system is drowning in cases. The law can't protect if there aren't enough judges to get through the cases at a reasonable speed."
The proliferation of AI has made the situation worse, as people increasingly use free advice from chatbots to file claims. Lawyers have warned it has seen the system flooded with complex lawsuits, which are often based on tenuous legal arguments.
"Employees are now extremely aggressive because they've got AI. It's really causing a massive problem for employers," says Hammer.
Alka Sehgal Cuthbert, from Don't Divide Us, says the success of certain anti-woke cases is "a pyrrhic victory".
She argues that the law has entrenched identity politics in the British legal system to the extent that even those with "anti-woke" views must make claims based on protected beliefs.
For Sehgal Cuthbert, this increasingly litigious culture is helping no one.
"It's encouraging us to make our claim and make our mark in the workplace and address our problems through promoting our own identity, narrowly defined in law, not by ourselves," she says.
"Do we really want our society to carry on down this route, where equality becomes equated with the proliferating number of legal cases ?"
A government spokesman said: "Anyone calling for the Equality Act to be scrapped should ask themselves if they would be happy with pregnant women losing protections or disabled people being legally pushed out of employment and public life.
"The act protects freedom of speech while balancing people's right to feel safe from harm. We do not comment on specific legal cases but we continue to keep case law under review."
