Reform UK’s equalities policy swamped in confusion after Braverman’s apparent U-turn

Reform UK’s equalities policy is mired in confusion this week after the party’s equalities spokesperson – former Tory home secretary Suella Braverman – appeared to perform a major U-turn in comments to Disability News Service (DNS).

There was a furious reaction from disabled people’s organisations earlier this year when Braverman marked her appointment as Reform’s education, skills and equalities spokesperson by announcing that her party would scrap the Equality Act if it won power.

The party told DNS in February that it would replace the act with a Workplace Fairness Act, before later suggesting that it would introduce another new act to cover discrimination across areas such as transport, shops, cinemas, and public services such as healthcare and education.

Members had celebrated Braverman’s announcement in February, after she told a party event: “So, do you know what a Reform government will do?

“Well, on day one we will get rid of the equalities department, we will scrap the equalities minister – yep, I’m doing myself out of a job – and we will repeal the Equality Act, because we are going to work to build a country defined by meritocracy not tokenism, personal responsibility not victimhood, excellence not mediocrity, and unity not division.”

As she finished speaking in February, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage confirmed that her comments were party policy, telling the event that “there was no room for any confusion there, was there!”

But there was plenty of room for confusion this week as Braverman (pictured, speaking) and her party said almost nothing about the plans to scrap the Equality Act.

She did briefly speak to DNS after a fringe event at the conference.

But she only added to the confusion by initially claiming that the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) had been introduced after the Equality Act 2010.

When corrected by DNS, she accepted the DDA had been introduced first – the first DDA became law in 1995 – before claiming: “We don’t want disabled people to be discriminated against or treated unfairly, sacked, because of their disability, we don’t want women to be treated unfairly because they are women, we don’t want gay people to be treated unfairly because they are…

“None of that will go, so those will go back to the position that existed before the Equality Act where there were reasonable workplace protections against discrimination.”

When DNS asked if a Reform UK government would therefore return to the protections provided by the DDA and that nothing that currently protects disabled people from discrimination would be lost, she said: “Correct, correct, we would maintain the same protections of disabled people, absolutely.”

And when DNS asked her to clarify that this would apply “all the way across”, she replied: “There would be no diminution in protection.”

DNS asked the party’s press office to clarify exactly what the party would do on equalities legislation, other than replacing a single act with separate acts covering different groups of people with protected characteristics from discrimination, but it had not responded by noon today (Thursday).