Why Nigel Farage's attack on human rights should worry us all
As a white working-class woman, Christine Jardine takes offence at Nigel Farage’s claim the Equality Act discriminates against white working-class men
It's time we woke up and realised that the threat to one group's rights is dangerous for us all. Within 24 hours last week, we saw genuine heartfelt tributes to one of the greatest civil rights campaigners of the 20th Century and calls for the abolition of the law which protects rights in the UK.
The late Jesse Jackson’s and Nigel Farage’s contradictory beliefs on human rights were brought into stark contrast. Rights which people in this country fought for – equal pay, disability rights, employment laws – were dismissed and disregarded by the man who wants to be our Prime Minister.
And why? Because Farage feels that the Equality Act discriminates against white working-class people. As a white working-class woman I take offence at that.
US Civil Rights movement
Rights are not finite. Protecting the rights of any group does not mean taking some away from anyone else. Nobody should, or I believe does, suffer because I have equality of opportunity.
I was brought up in a household where I would listen through the wall on a Saturday evening to my parents and their friends talking about Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy and why the Civil Rights movement in the US was important to all of us.
As a young woman, I watched both Jesse Jackson’s two presidential campaigns with hope that this could be the breakthrough.
Then as a mother, I hugged my daughter and cried as Barack Obama’s inauguration in 2009 fulfilled Martin Luther King’s dream for a younger generation. And not just for what it meant in the US but for what it could mean for all those people in this country who had suffered discrimination and who might now have the confidence to stand up and challenge prejudice wherever they faced it.
LGBT+ rights in decline
The following year Gordon Brown’s government passed the Equality Act to ensure that those with certain characteristics – ethnicity, disability, gender, sexuality, gender dysphoria – enjoyed the same rights, protected by law, that were taken for granted by some.
As a woman I finally felt the law recognised and gave me the tools to fight the discrimination I’d seen and experienced all my life. It also gave this country the impetus to become the top country in Europe for protecting LGBT+ rights ten years ago.
Not any more. Now we are not even in the top 20 in Europe, according to the latest United Nations rankings.
And Farage thinks we are doing too much. That the Act which protects your rights and mine should be binned. Not improved, or developed, but thrown out. Trashed.
Everything my parents’ generation, and ours, worked for to ensure equality of opportunity for all, regardless of background, gender, ethnicity, sexuality or any other characteristic, tossed aside.
Is the act as it stands perfect? Probably not. Should we always be aware of the need to review, improve and adapt it? Of course.
But civil and human rights are not finite. Ensuring one group has rights does not affect anyone else's.
Farage claims working-class men are being discriminated against by the Equality Act. If that is the case they deserve protection – but not at the cost of anybody else’s rights.
Human rights are for all humans, right?
Christine Jardine is the Scottish Liberal Democrat MP for Edinburgh West
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