Kemi Badenoch has launched a dramatic assault on one of Britain’s most significant equality laws, claiming it has contributed to some of the country’s worst public failures by encouraging officials to prioritise accusations of discrimination over public safety.
In a major speech in central London, the Conservative leader announced plans to scrap the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED), arguing that it has fostered a culture in which public bodies are more concerned about being accused of racism than making difficult decisions.
Mrs Badenoch claimed the duty had become emblematic of a wider institutional mindset that has left police, local authorities and public agencies reluctant to intervene in situations where warning signs were evident.
The Public Sector Equality Duty requires public bodies to consider how their decisions affect people with protected characteristics, including race, religion, sex, disability and age.
However, Mrs Badenoch argued that the legislation has evolved into something far removed from its original purpose.
All these crimes could have been stopped if people had intervened instead of having a fear of being called racist,” she said.
In a speech likely to ignite fierce political debate, the Conservative leader cited a series of major atrocities, including the Manchester Arena bombing, the Nottingham attacks and the Southport murders, arguing that concerns over equality and discrimination had influenced decision-making.
She claimed that authorities had become paralysed by fears of being accused of prejudice.
“We would not have had so many girls abused by rape gangs if local authorities had not looked away because they were too scared to point out the obvious,” she said.
Mrs Badenoch also argued that concerns about racial profiling had contributed to failures before the Manchester Arena bombing, while claiming that broader diversity considerations had influenced decisions surrounding the treatment of Nottingham killer Valdo Calocane.
Her most politically explosive comments centred on the murders of three young girls in Southport, where she suggested officials had failed to respond adequately to warning signs surrounding Axel Rudakubana.
The Conservative leader accused public institutions of becoming consumed by ideological priorities at the expense of competence.
“Public institutions have spent so long worrying about institutional racism that they have become institutionally incompetent,” she said.
The speech comes against the backdrop of growing public concern over policing, accountability and trust in public institutions following the murder of Henry Nowak in Southampton.
The case has become a flashpoint in the wider debate about whether equality policies have distorted operational decision-making. Mr Nowak, an 18-year-old student, was handcuffed by police officers as he lay dying after his attacker alleged he had been subjected to racist abuse.
Mrs Badenoch said she shared the family’s desire to see lessons learned rather than communities divided.
“What they want is for something good to come out of the outpouring of public shock,” she said.
“They want the police to become an institution that we can trust again.”
The Conservative leader also appeared to distance herself from calls for a more confrontational response to recent controversies.
In a thinly veiled criticism of Reform UK leader Nigel Farage’s description of the public reaction to Henry Nowak’s killing as “pure, cold rage”, Mrs Badenoch warned that anger alone would not solve institutional failures.
“We are angry, I am angry,” she said.
“But rage is not a strategy. Rage is not a solution.”
The intervention highlights an increasingly important dividing line on the Right, with Mrs Badenoch seeking to position herself as a reformer determined to rebuild institutions rather than simply condemn them.
Labour swiftly condemned the proposals.
Science Secretary Liz Kendall accused the Conservative leader of threatening hard-won protections and attempting to roll back safeguards that protect women, disabled people and minority groups from discrimination.
She argued that abolishing the Public Sector Equality Duty would undermine protections for pregnant women, employees on maternity leave and vulnerable workers.
The clash underscores how equality law has become one of the central ideological battlegrounds in British politics.
For Mrs Badenoch, the issue is no longer simply about diversity policies or public sector guidance. It is about whether institutions are capable of carrying out their core functions.
Her argument is that Britain has reached a point where fear of causing offence has too often trumped common sense.
Whether voters agree may prove one of the defining political questions of the years ahead.
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