Quango for Bigotry: The shameful recent history of the so-called “Equality and Human Rights Commission”
We’ve been hearing a lot about the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) recently for all the wrong reasons. Many are wondering why a quango meant to enforce the Equality Act appears to be solely focused on making life for trans people more difficult.
The EHRC was set up in 2007 to ensure there is no discrimination based on nine protected characteristics of age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation. It took over the responsibilities of existing separate commissions for for Racial Inequality, Equal Oppurtunities and Disability Rights. It’s fair to say it’s been downhill ever since.
Racism
The shortcomings of the EHRC were first laid bare to me personally after the Windrush Scandal in 2018, which exposed a litany of institutional failings including years of immigration clampdowns culminating in Theresa May’s toxic “hostile environment.“ Caribbean elders who had lived and worked in this country suddenly found themselves unable to work, fund housing or access the NHS, including a man who was undergoing cancer treatment.
Following an initial four page assessment in 2018 which had no greater insight than a Twitter thread, the EHRC in 2023 signed a “legal agreement“ with the Home Office that it must comply with equality law when implementing future policy. That’s nice, meanwhile many Windrush scandal victims still await compensation and there has barely been a word from them on the topic since.
Both the recent Conservative and Labour governments have continued to make aggressive border control policies that are racist (safe routes for Ukrainians, but not for Palestinians) and in breach of human rights, such as Yvette Cooper‘s proclamation that refugees arriving by small boat would never normally gain British citizenship. Not a peep from the EHRC.
In 2018 under the Tory government, the EHRC had something of a cull. 12 staff were selected for compulsory redundancy, of which only two were white British. Eight were people of colour, with four of those Muslim, and six were disabled. A letter of concern to then EHRC chair David Isaac by the former head of the Commission for Racial Equality Herman Ousely had no impact.
Disproportionate firing of ethnic minorities and disabled people seems like just the kind of case the EHRC would take up. Instead they defended it by saying their ethnic make up reflected the population at large - probably referring to the non-white population of the UK, around 13% at the time - despite their offices being in London (45% Black, Asian or mixed) and Manchester (43%) and ignoring the fact that a human rights organisaton should clearly be employing those with first hand experiences of the issues at hand.
By 2019, after that process where the only Black director was selected for redundancy, all but two remaining ethnic minority workers were on the lowest three pay grades. The line up of commissioners looked distinctly white. In 2020 the EHRC said they had a “desire for more diversity“ a startlingly banal response for an organisation with their remit.
Furthermore, EHRC commissioner Alasdair Henderson in November 2020 came under scrutiny for his twitter use, to no repercussions whatsoever. According to the Guardian, he liked or retweeted posts criticising Black Lives Matter protesters, describing the words misogynist and homophobe as “highly ideological propaganda terms”, and a tweet denouncing “offence-taking zealots” who accused philosopher and writer Roger Scruton of antisemitism, Islamophobia and homophobia.
Islamophobia
The EHRC was keen to investigate antisemitism in the Labour party and published their report in October 2020 finding the Labour party had committed unlawful acts.
When it came to accusations of Islamophobia in the Conservative party, highlighted by former Tory co-chair and peer Sayeedi Warsi, the EHRC seemed rather more reluctant to act. The Muslim Council of Great Britain asked the EHRC to investigate the Conservative party twice, in 2019 and received no reply. In 2020, the MCB submitted a dossier including 300 instances of discriminatory language against Muslims. The EHRC finally responded, stating they would leave the to Tories to investigate themselves.
Naturally, In May 2021, the party infamous for Boris Johnson‘s comments about Muslim women who wear the niqab that caused a spike in racist attacks and Zac Goldsmith’s notorious mayoral campaign which insinuated Sadiq Khan was an extremist exonerated itself.
Could this decision have been anything to do with the fact that David Goodhart, the so-called journalist and author, who wrote entire books against immigration, defended “white self interest” and the very hostile environment that had caused the Windrush s scandal, and who denied the existence of Islamophobia, had recently been appointed as an EHRC commissioner?
Sexism
In 2020, broadcaster Samira Ahmed won an employment tribunal she brought against the BBC where she claimed she was underpaid by £700,000 for hosting audience feedback show Newswatch compared with Jeremy Vine's salary for Points of View.
Despite this high profile case, an investigation by the EHRC into equal pay at the BBC found no unlawful acts of pay discrimination. Journalist Nadine White found that the EHRC had not considered Samira Ahmed’s case at all.
Ableism
in 2018 when the EHRC made cuts to staff and 6 of the 12 people made redundant were disabled, you would think such an astonishing ratio would have given pause for thought in such a commission, but this was not the case.
John Pring
In 2023, the EHRC was criticised by disability rights campaigners for its response to a UN report on the then Tory government‘s rights violations towards disabled people. Its response was described as not fit for purpose with the EHRC spending considerable time criticising the devolved Scottish and Welsh governments and not the UK government itself.
Linda Burnip, co-founder of Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) said at the time “How they manage to maintain their A status as a human rights watchdog is beyond my comprehension.”
In 2025, the current Labour government has attempted to make cuts to disabled people’s welfare, in particular the disability element of universal credit and personal Independence payments (PIP). These are cuts that impact the dignity and well-being of disabled people and were surrounded by toxic discourse including the welfare ”bill” being called ”unsustainable”.
This is despite the UK having one of the lowest levels of support in Europe and repeated outright lies by the government, in particular Work and Pensions minister Liz Kendall, that PIP was payable to people out of work when it is a payment not related to unemployment. The EHRC has been decidedly silent on all these points.
Transphobia
Before she became the legendary hapless economy crashing 49-day Prime Minister, Liz Truss as Women and Equalities minister appointed Kishwer Falkner, a life peer, to the role of chair of the EHRC in December 2020.
Falkner wasted no time in making the focus of the EHRC’s work being supporting those with “gender critical“ ie transphobic views. In April 2021, the EHRC intervened in the case of Maya Forstater, agreeing with her tribunal appeal judge that her gender critical beliefs were protected under the Equality Act, despite the fact that the original tribunal judge had said her views were "incompatible with human dignity and fundamental rights of others".
In December 2021, there was on the face of it good news: the EHRC announced a Black commissioner, barrister Akua Reindorf. The bad news was that she had previously shown vocal support for gender critical people and their right to be unchallenged when they attempt to spew bigotry on university campuses.
In 2023, Vice published an article with testimony from EHRC staffers who were quitting due to a culture of transphobia. Former employees described board members changing their work and “making the documents transphobic and seriously inaccurate. When some employees complained, they were locked out of laptops and disciplinary action was taken against them.“
One ex-employee said: “I was seeing our upcoming publications and guidance pushing for trans rights being changed – or completely scrapped and shelved permanently – meanwhile the Board was building links to anti-trans groups. It was awful.”
Ben Hunte
In April 2025 following the much criticised and institutionally transphobic decision by the Supreme Court in the JK Rowling backed For Women Scotland v The Scottish Ministers, the EHRC quickly issued guidance stating that trans people should not be using toilets they have been using in some cases for decades, causing considerable distress.
Falkner did a media tour and seemed incensed people were questioning her authority as regulator - forgetting that fact that (a) she was not elected (b) has no authority over us whatsoever and (c) the duty of a regulator is to protect the public.
A consultation was launched and it now appears that the EHRC has said it will ignore 50% of responses (you can guess which ones). Akua Reindorf said that trans people “have been lied to for many years” about what their rights are, saying they should roll over and accept reduced rights. A director of the trans campaign group TransActual said Reindorf’s remarks were profoundly unhelpful. The Good Law Project is now taking the EHRC to court over its transphobic guidance.
With Falkner exiting, as expected Bridget Phillipson has confirmed Mary Ann-Stephenson as the new Chair of the EHRC. This is against the recommendation of the Women and Equalities Commission after a frankly shifty and evasive pre-appointment scrutiny meeting. Naturally her bluesky account before it was deleted showed that she was following many noted “gender critical“ people.
So far from being an independently-minded organisation upholding human rights and equality on behalf of the public, the EHRC has been engineered to reflect the government‘s own prejudices and bigotry for years, and at the moment it solely appears to exist to implement a transphobic agenda. That it is a Labour government that is doing it should be shocking but after five years of Keir Starmer as leader sadly not many are surprised.
The EHRC is simply not fit for purpose and should be scrapped and a proper organisation protecting our human rights established. Don’t hold your breath, but in the meantime anything they say on the subject of equality and human rights can be absolutely ignored.
