Kemi Badenoch has argued that Britain took a “wrong turn” after the landmark Macpherson report into the racially motivated killing of Stephen Lawrence, announced plans to scrap the Public Sector Equality Duty, and said that “it doesn’t matter if more black boys are searched, because it means more black lives will be saved.”
Speaking at the Institute for Government think tank, the Conservative leader cited the Southport murders, the Nottingham stabbings, the Manchester Arena bombing and the murder of Henry Nowak as examples of where she believes equalities law has gone too far – arguing all could have been prevented if public bodies had not been paralysed by fear of being called racist.
The speech was explicitly framed as an attempt to compete with Reform UK on law and order – and drew immediate backlash from disability charities and the government, who warned that scrapping the Public Sector Equality Duty would remove protections for pregnant women, disabled people and those on maternity leave.
The Macpherson argument
The Macpherson report was published in 1999 following a public inquiry into the Metropolitan Police’s investigation of Stephen Lawrence’s murder in 1993. Lawrence, an 18-year-old Black student, was killed in a racially motivated attack. The inquiry found the Metropolitan Police to be “institutionally racist.” One of its central recommendations was a new definition of a racist incident: “any incident which is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person.”
This principle – that the perception of racism is sufficient to classify an incident as racist and trigger a police response – is the specific element Badenoch is attacking.
“Stephen Lawrence’s murder resulted in the influential Macpherson report, a report that wanted to put right what went wrong with policing in the 1990s,” she said. “However, in attempting to do so, it also enshrined a principle which I believe is wrong: that a racist incident is racist, if it is perceived as racist by the victim or any other person.”
“This may have made sense in a different context long ago, but today when we look at the response to Henry Nowak’s murder, and the police’s acceptance that the murderer was correct when he accused Henry of racism, it’s clear that mere accusations are being accepted as facts.”
As we reported in our Electoral Dysfunction analysis, the podcast panel discussed exactly this question – whether police training had produced an overcorrection – and Ruth Davidson specifically asked whether there had been overcorrection while noting that the evidence of discrimination against minority communities in policing remained substantial. As we reported in our Leroy Logan Newsnight piece, Logan cited that Black people are eight times more likely to be stopped and searched by police than white counterparts, and four times more likely to be disciplined within the police service. Those statistics reflect decades of data, not training guidance from the last few years.
The crimes she cited
Badenoch cited four incidents as examples of where fear of accusations of racism had prevented intervention.
The Manchester Arena bombing of 2017, in which 22 people were killed, is referenced in the context of a security guard who identified the bomber – Salman Abedi – but did not report him because, as emerged at the inquest, he feared being seen as racist. As we reported in our Electoral Dysfunction piece, Davidson raised this specific case as among the most compelling evidence for the overcorrection argument.
The Southport murders of three young girls, the Nottingham stabbings, and Henry Nowak’s case are the other three examples Badenoch cited. “All these crimes could have been stopped if people had intervened instead of having a fear of being called racist,” she said.
The claim will face scrutiny. The Nottingham stabbings involved a suspect, Valdo Calocane, who had been known to mental health services. The question of whether racism fear prevented intervention is contested. The Southport case involved Axel Rudakubana, who was on MI5’s radar. Henry Nowak’s case, as we have reported extensively, may also involve simple police training failures around internal bleeding – as the sentencing judge’s remarks suggested officers may not have identified the severity of his injury rather than that they consciously prioritised Digwa’s false accusation.
Stop and search – and the statistics
Badenoch announced plans to triple stop and search. She was direct about the implications.
“I’m afraid it doesn’t matter if more black boys are searched, because it means more black lives will be saved.”
In questions after the speech, she elaborated. When black boys are searched, more knives are found. Mothers of young Black people killed by their peers had told her they wanted stop and search. “I am not going to run away from an outcry and allow other people’s children to be killed just so I can have a quiet life.”
The counterargument is in the data her speech was delivered against. A report published earlier this year found that Black people are up to 48 times more likely than white people to be stopped and searched by police in some of London’s wealthiest areas. That figure – 48 times – represents not a marginal disparity but an extraordinary one that predates the current policing guidance and has persisted across decades of attempted reform.
As we reported in our Zia Yusuf and Kuenssberg piece, Yusuf made a structurally similar argument on Sunday Morning – that the policing guidance was the cause of differential outcomes. Kuenssberg pushed back on the evidence. The question of whether a pattern that predates the guidance can be attributed to it is central to whether Badenoch’s analysis holds.
Scrapping the PSED – and who it protects
The Public Sector Equality Duty, which Badenoch committed to scrapping, is the legal requirement obliging public bodies to actively consider how their decisions affect people with protected characteristics. It was introduced by the Equality Act 2010.
Liz Kendall, the science secretary, set out what scrapping it would mean in practice. “What she’s saying is she wants to repeal a duty which stops pregnant women being sacked, women on maternity leave being sacked, which prevents discrimination against disabled people, which prevents discrimination on age grounds.”
Harriet Edwards of the disability charity Sense described it as “a commonsense safeguard that ensures public bodies think about the impact of decisions on disabled people. For disabled people, that can mean the difference between being able to access school, healthcare, transport or housing, and being shut out of those services altogether.”
As we reported in our Stefanovic Reform policies piece, Peter Stefanovic documented that Reform’s Great Repeal Act would also scrap the Equality Act – a policy whose implications for women, disabled people and gay workers Stefanovic characterised as legalising discrimination. Badenoch is proposing to remove the PSED rather than the Equality Act itself, but the direction of travel is the same: rolling back the legal infrastructure of equality obligations on public bodies.
Staff networks
Badenoch also took aim at staff networks in public bodies representing Black, Asian, LGBTQ+ and other employees. She said they should not receive paid time off for their activities.
“My experience of staff networks in the civil service was that they were actually a way for some people to create a clique or a cabal who were then furthering their own personal careers at the expense of other civil servants. The staff networks ended up being bad for some of their colleagues. I even saw in some cases bullying of other people who didn’t share their views.”
The political context
The speech is explicitly framed by the reporting as an attempt to compete with Reform UK’s challenge to the Conservatives. As we reported in our Badenoch speech piece, Badenoch has rejected calls to move the Conservative Party toward the centre, arguing instead for ideological clarity. The direction she is moving – attacking the Macpherson report, calling for tripled stop and search, scrapping the PSED – is toward the same political territory Reform has been occupying.
The question of whether that territory is winnable for Badenoch, given that the voters most enthusiastic about it have already migrated to Reform, is one she will have to answer at the ballot box. As we reported in our Reform Badenoch attack ad piece, Wes Streeting noted that Badenoch’s response to Nowak scored the best public approval rating of any party leader – suggesting that her measured approach to that specific case had political value that this more aggressive posture may not replicate.
You can watch the speech in full below:
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