New commissioners appointed to EHRC

[IwantToRetire]

The newly-appointed EHRC Commissioners are:

• Martyn Jones JP DL: Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Manager at South Wales Police and Interim Chair of the EHRC Wales Committee. A Deputy Lieutenant of Mid Glamorgan, he was previously CEO of Learning Disability Wales, CEO of Diverse Cymru, and a Presiding Justice.
• David Carrigan: Has over 25 years of experience in equality, human rights, and social mobility across sectors including housing, policing, media, and technology. Roles include Group Director at Sky, Director at Live Nation, and leadership positions at Citizens Advice and the Homes and Communities Agency.
• Polly Neate: A cross-bench peer in the House of Lords. She is a coach and strategic advisor. Formerly, she was CEO of Shelter and Women’s Aid. Polly has experience in housing, homelessness, and women’s issues. She is a trustee for the Young Women’s Trust and Women in Sport.
• Jemima Olchawski: Executive Director of Social Impact at Mind. Formerly CEO of the Fawcett Society and CEO of Agenda, she served as a member of the Ministry of Justice’s Advisory Board on Female Offenders and led the campaign for the Workers Protection Act.
• Sunder Katwala: Has over 25 years of experience in think tanks, journalism, and publishing. He is the Director of British Future, a charity and think tank focused on identity, race, and immigration. He previously led the Fabian Society and worked at The Observer and Foreign Policy Centre.
• Susan Kemp: An international lawyer and adviser with experience at the Scottish Human Rights Commission. Her background includes work with the UN, civil society, and international organisations on rule of law and human rights issues.

Full press release https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-commissioners-appointed-to-ehrc

Susan Kemp:
An international lawyer and adviser with experience at the Scottish Human Rights Commission ...

That's the same Scottish Human Rights Commission that ...
'supported the placement of prisoners based on self-declared gender identity.'

Polly Neate:
That's the same Polly Neate who was CEO of Shelter ...

'and tweeted that homeless white people perpetuate structural racism and benefit from privilege because of the color of their skin.'

'And without any extra pay, Shelter staff were required to plow through mountains of reading, from an encyclopedia of microaggressions to a guide on ‘How To Be a Trans Ally’.

..............................

sighs 🙄

It sounds like someone is stacking the deck. 😡

So she can appointment six new commissioners but can't get the EHRC guidance on the Equality Act out until after this.

Presumably the next news will be something like...

Phillipson delays release of updated EHRC guidance saying that "As the new commissioners will need to produce more guidance in addition to what has already been written for service providers, it's important to give them an opportunity to review what's there now before we release it. This is how we will keep all future guidance consistent. We expect to release the service provider and all other guidance together, in early 2027"

And they wonder why Reform is doing so well (I know Reform is surprisingly not very gender critical, but it’s the general perception that it’s the party of common sense on this issue).

They slipped the old lead of their own society in there.

Ooh look, they're stacking the deck. Again.

And the law still says what it says. Women have sexed based rights. They cannot create guidance from existing law that somehow erases that to let men abuse women.

As the SC and the EHRC both seem at this point to be a waste of time and money all round with no actual impact anywhere, I'd think the EHRC unfortunately will be a casualty of Reform getting into power very early on. Particularly if all it now does is swing wildly between political positions according to how it's manipulated and stacked towards particular view points, but has no actual effect or relevance in what it releases anyway.

Except of course to provide something for Ms Phillipson to sit on.

Are any of these sex realists?

I was wondering the same - do we have a deep dive on any of the others?

Is there anyone left who isn't a gender ideology?

The first bloke is from Wales, so no to Sex Realism.

Yes.....

Well Reform will apparently solve the problem a different way of course. By getting rid of the Equality Act on day 1:

https://www.personneltoday.com/hr/reform-uk-would-repeal-equality-act/

Even Trump didn't go that mental when addressing the overreach of EDI.

A UK with no Equality Act would quickly become a country where employers just won't bother employing women. It'll be too expensive to bother because there is always a risk that they could get pregnant and would need maternity pay.

“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, 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.”
Reform did not explain what would replace the Equality Act, but Farage said it would mean “getting rid of the pernicious, divisive notion of protected characteristics”, while still protecting people in the workplace."

They say they're going to replace it with something else, whether that will be better we can't say yet because they haven't given any details. Framing it the way you have is just scaremongering, get a grip.

strongly expect them to lean into it the same way the Republicans did

Absolutely. I went into great detail on this on another thread. Repeal is what you do even when you bring in a new replacement. They are not scrapping without replacing.

Will that replacement be any good, dunno, but, it's not scrapping all rights ever.

.

Oh thank goodness. Thank you for that!

Yay Wales, we have 1 sensible person, we need many, many more. 🥳

I don't think it's a good idea to replace complex equalities legislation that successfully balances out everyone's rights, including accommodating the fact that only women can have babies, "on day 1" with an as yet undefined idea. It's got as much substance as Labour's "vote for change" campaign.

I don't believe it's scaremongering to call out how ill thought through that sounds.

The PCs certainly aren't perfect (gender reassignment makes no sense as written) but they serve an important purpose.

The overreach of DEI can be addressed without removing and replacing the Equality Act.

Repealing the GRA, on the other hand, would be a great idea. It's even more non-sensical than the definition of gender reassignment and doesn't need to be replaced with anything. Nobody should be given legal rights to replace fact with belief, which is the sole purpose of the GRA.

If there is some info on another thread that I can read which fleshes out in greater detail what "better" looks like (i.e. it's more than just an undefined idea), I would be very happy to read it. If it's clear in what it wants to achieve and how it won't leave people exposed to discrimination, that would be helpful to see. Please could you send me the link to the thread?

Faye's win proves again today, the law IS coming down on the side of protecting women and single sex spaces even without the guidance being released at all.

Suggestion in the judgment (yet again) that third spaces should be provided, so that those who have gender beliefs can practice them, and women are unharassed and have accessible single sex spaces.

Sorry no more clearing up the difference in meaning between repeal and replace, as in used interchangeably by government.

a Reform replacement of the EQA could be a disaster I’m not pretending it will be milk and honey, but it’s not being repealed and just left with no protections at all.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5526495-reform-plans-threaten-maternity-leave-and-job-security-for-half-a-million-pregnant-women-analysis-shows?page=1

Ah ok ta.

Yep, I'm clear on the difference between "repeal = remove" and "repeal = replace". I agree it's very annoying that repeal/replace are used interchangeably!

I'm still of the same opinion as above, that it's a very ill-considered idea to talk about replacing it on day 1 without clarity on what that apparent improvement would be. As well as being similar to Labour's "vote for change" (but we can't tell you what that looks like) campaign, it's familiar Farage territory because it's how Brexit was positioned. It's all about tapping into the emotion behind how pissed off everyone is (e.g. about the DEI overreach) and getting a populist swell of support behind the idea that "anything has got to be better than this".

Sadly, it seems to work.. well, it's a vote winner. Actual delivery when in power and people want to know the details so that they can understand how it impacts them, not so much.

Where previously women might have been concerned about causing problems, i think we are now at the point where everyone should complain to everywhere about their policies on the basis of indirect sex discrimination. Even where you’re not actively using a service at present eg your local hospital etc. Because without a raft of complaints and the threat of having to pay out compensation they won’t do anything differently. Who fancies coordinating a letter writing campaign?

Maybe we dont even need the stupid guidance. Enough employers get sued, they'll work it out eventually.