Nigel Farage said Reform UK would abolish the Equality Act of 2010 and replace it with earlier anti-discrimination rules, arguing that current policies have created a two-tier system in Britain.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said his party would seek to abolish the Equality Act of 2010, accusing the British government of embedding diversity, equity and inclusion policies across public life in a way he said disadvantages white British people.
In his debut article on Substack, Farage argued that Westminster has created what he described as a “two-tier” system through laws and policies that he said elevate minority groups while undermining the native population. He said the approach has spread through public institutions, workplaces and hiring systems under the language of equality.
Farage said supporters of diversity, equity and inclusion describe the agenda as an effort to make opportunity more equal. But he argued that the system has become, in his words, a “deeply sinister act of social cleansing,” carried out through unelected anti-racist institutions and networks that he said seek to “dominate” and suppress the native population.
The Reform UK leader focused much of his criticism on the Equality Act, passed in 2010 under the Labour government led by Gordon Brown. Farage noted that Harriet Harman, Labour’s former deputy leader and a central figure behind the legislation, was recently brought back by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer as a Downing Street adviser.
Farage said the law’s name obscured what he described as its broader political purpose, arguing that the act became the main vehicle through which “anti-Whiteness is institutionalised into every aspect of public life.”
“This wasn’t about stopping discrimination – those laws had already been in place for decades. It was a chance for Labour to infect us with a political agenda that would persist long after they had been chucked out of government. Unbeknownst to the country, they had signed us up to a permanent revolution. And ‘equality’, as we would come to realise, had nothing to do with it,” Farage wrote.
He singled out Section 149 of the Equality Act, which created a public sector equality duty. The provision requires public bodies to “encourage persons who share a relevant protected characteristic to participate in public life … in which participation by such persons is disproportionately low.”
Farage said that language effectively required state institutions to adopt DEI principles, shifting emphasis away from equal treatment based on merit and toward representation across identity categories.
Although Labour passed the law, Farage said the Conservative government that followed expanded the system by requiring public bodies to publish annual reports on “equality objectives.” He said that requirement created a new bureaucratic structure inside government and public institutions.
“Overnight, the Tories created a gigantic legal burden for the public sector that necessitated the creation of a permanent class of DEI bureaucrats. Is it any wonder that the Human Resources sector seems to be the only part of the economy that’s actually functioning?” Farage wrote.
Supporters of the Equality Act have said the legislation is not discriminatory because it does not create formal quota systems for ethnic, sexual or religious minorities. Farage rejected that argument, saying institutions can use other methods to produce similar outcomes.
“These bigots are rarely so stupid to share their hateful views explicitly. There are plenty of workarounds for those determined to keep White people out,” Farage wrote.
Farage said one such workaround is the distinction between “positive discrimination,” which the law prohibits, and “positive action,” which the law permits in certain contexts. He argued that positive action can allow public and private institutions to create programs, including paid internships, that exclude young white men.
He also criticized the law’s “tiebreaker” provision, saying it allows employers to consider identity characteristics when choosing between candidates deemed otherwise equally qualified.
Farage pledged that a Reform UK government would “bring this madness to an end” by abolishing the Equality Act and returning to anti-discrimination rules that existed before 2010. He said that change would immediately end what he described as “positive action” discrimination in hiring and promotions.
“No recruitment, training or promotion policies that favour one group over another will be lawful: we will restore meritocracy so your skin colour, sex, age or sexuality has no bearing on your job prospects or treatment as an employee. It’s the best person for the job that matters,” Farage wrote.
Farage also said Reform UK would prevent national and local governments from implementing DEI-style policies. He said his party would make political appointments with a “mandate to enforce bans on DEI at a ground level.”
The debate has intensified following the murder trial involving 18-year-old student Henry Nowak, who was stabbed to death by Vikrum Digwa, a Sikh man, with a ceremonial knife.
According to the information provided, officers reached the scene before Nowak died but refused to believe he had been stabbed. Instead, they accepted claims from Digwa and his family that Nowak had been racially abusive and handcuffed the dying teenager.
Farage and others have argued that the police response reflected the influence of anti-white racism and DEI policies across public institutions.
Farage’s comments place the Equality Act and DEI policy at the center of Reform UK’s broader argument over public sector hiring, policing and the role of identity-based rules in British institutions.
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