Scrapping DEI: Reform UK’s Path to Preserving Privilege
DEI Doesn’t Give Minorities an Advantage. It Just Sits Them Next to You, and For Some Reason, That Makes People Feel Uncomfortable
By Sean Ash
The reason was my back. At the time, I wasn’t registered as disabled. I didn’t even fully understand what was wrong with me. I just knew something was going on physically and it wasn’t going away. But back then, saying you had a “bad back” got you laughed at. People mocked it. They didn’t believe it was real. It was easier to stay quiet than risk the stigma.
Years later, I would find out that there was something seriously wrong. Something that would eventually put me in a wheelchair permanently. If I had been registered as disabled at the time, I could have challenged the outcome of that medical. I could have argued my case. But the fear of judgment and the absence of protection left me vulnerable. This is why DEI matters. This is why the Equality Act matters. Not just in theory, but in practice. It’s not about special treatment. It’s about giving people a fair shot.
Today, those protections are being treated like a threat. Nigel Farage recently stated on X that Reform UK councillors will not be taking part in DEI or climate change training because, in his words, “we believe all people should be treated equally.”
But equality and equity are not the same thing. Equality is giving everyone a size 7 shoe and expecting them to walk. Equity is recognising that we all have different sized feet and making sure everyone has a pair of shoes that fits. And really, what is so wrong about that?
DEI doesn’t give anyone a free pass. In fact, it still doesn’t go far enough. Just look at the numbers. According to Wright Hassall’s analysis of UK employment tribunal outcomes in 2023 to 2024, there were 124 successful disability discrimination claims, making it the most common type of successful discrimination case. In contrast, there were only three successful claims of religious discrimination during the same period. That’s not because religious discrimination doesn’t happen. It’s because many people never even make it that far. They drop their cases. They feel the system is stacked against them. They lose hope.
According to a 2025 report by CIPHR, 34 percent of ethnic minority jobseekers in the UK said they had experienced racial discrimination while applying for work. That’s more than one in three. Among the general population, that number was just 9.3 percent. So when we talk about a level playing field, we need to ask whether it ever existed in the first place.
According to a study by Pearn Kandola published in 2024, 24 percent of Muslim workers reported experiencing discrimination at work following the October 2023 terror attack. 36 percent of respondents said they believed that discrimination had increased since the escalation of the Israel-Gaza conflict. These are not abstract claims. These are working people, in this country, describing what they’ve felt and faced.
Meanwhile, government data on hate crimes paints an even bleaker picture. According to Home Office statistics reported by The Times, there were 3,866 religious hate crimes against Muslims in the year ending March 2024, up 13 percent from the year before. Anti-Semitic hate crimes more than doubled, reaching 3,282 incidents. Combined, these two groups accounted for over 70 percent of all religious hate crime in the UK.
These are the realities. Not theories. Not slogans. But measurable, documented injustices happening in plain sight.
When people complain about DEI, what they’re really expressing is discomfort. Discomfort at being asked to share the space. Discomfort that someone they’ve been trained to overlook is now sitting beside them at the interview table. DEI doesn’t hand out jobs. What it does is remove the silent, invisible barriers that too many people never had to think about. It acknowledges that bias is real, that history lingers, and that some of us are still playing catch-up through no fault of our own.
When politicians call for the repeal of protections like the Equality Act, they’re not standing up for fairness. They’re protecting the privilege that already exists. They’re trying to make sure that the playing field stays tilted in their favour. They talk about equality, but they don’t like what it looks like when it starts to arrive.
In 2007, I kept quiet. I wasn’t registered. I didn’t challenge what happened. But I see it now for what it was. And I see how many others are still being shut out, still being judged, still being overlooked because of things that should never be barriers in the first place.
DEI doesn’t put minorities ahead. It just puts them next to you. If that makes you uncomfortable, maybe the problem isn’t DEI. Maybe it’s how comfortable you got with being alone at the top.
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