Farage’s call to scrap race discrimination laws “demonstrates breath-taking ignorance”, says Khan

It’s been reported today that UKIP leader, Nigel Farage, has said he would like to get rid of most of the legislation that stops employers from discriminating against employees and potential employees on the basis of race, nationality and ethnicity.

The Race Relations Act was introduced in 1976 and made it illegal to discriminate against people on the basis of race, nationality and ethnicity – particularly in the workplace. It was then amended in 2000 to make it a duty for public bodies to promote race relations.

In a Channel 4 documentary that’ll be shown next week, entitled The Things We Won’t Say About Race That Are True, Farage claimed that UKIP are “colour blind”. He then went on to say that he would like to see “much of” the laws stopping racial discrimination scrapped:

“I would argue that the law does need changing, and that if an employer wishes to choose, or you can use the word  ‘discriminate’ if you want to, but wishes to choose to employ a British-born person, they should be allowed to do so. I think you should be able to choose on the basis of nationality, yes. I do.” 

Farage also suggested that there is a “problem” with people who come from abroad who are Muslims:

“There is no previous experience, in our history, of a migrant group that comes to Britain, that fundamentally wants to change who we are and what we are. That is, I think, above every else, what people are really concerned about.”

These comments come after there have been reports of a rising amount of Islamophobia in the UK, particularly in schools. They also come a day after figures released by the ONS showed that since 2010 long-term unemployment among Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) young people had risen by 49%. While for their white counterparts the number of those unemployed for more than a year fell by 2%.

To coincide with this, Labour announced they’d be releasing a BAME manifesto, which will be spearheaded by Shadow Justice Secretary and Shadow Minister for London Sadiq Khan. He has responded to Farage’s comments, pointing out how out-of-touch the UKIP leader is:

“This is one of the most shocking things I have ever heard from a mainstream politician and demonstrates breath-taking ignorance.

“We have made huge progress on tackling racial inequality and discrimination in this country, partly because of Labour’s strong anti-discrimination laws, but things are still far from perfect.

“When my parents moved to London they frequently saw signs saying ‘no blacks, no dogs, no Irish’; what Ukip is suggesting would take us back to those days.”