Hey, before we get started talking about Nigel Farage and his grand idea of scrapping anti-discrimination legislation so that employers can hire a white British person over a black/Asian/minority ethnic (BAME) British person simply because, well, they’re white, we need to tell you something.
Since 2010, when the Coalition came into power, long-term unemployment for BAME youth has risen by 49%. It now stands at 41,000 BAME people aged 16-24, out of work. The rise in long-term unemployment for white youth? 1%.
Something’s awry here. There’s no sensible reason why white youth should be getting jobs over BAME youth, but they are.
Who’s going to step in to stop that? Well, stricter implementation of existing anti-discrimination laws, which say it’s not acceptable to choose a white candidate for a job over a BAME candidate, simply on the basis of race, as well as bringing back the Coalition-scrapped equality impact assessments, which, simply put, are checklists making sure that any new idea brought in by the government will affect everyone – men, women, black, white, gay, straight, and everything in-between – equally.
One person who’s basically vowed to make unemployment for all BAME people worse? UKIP leader Nigel Farage, who’s said that he’ll be scrapping anti-discrimination laws.
When asked by Trevor Phillips, former equality and human rights commissioner, what he’d remove from the anti-discrimination laws, he replied: ‘Much of it. I think the employer should be much freer to make decisions on who he or she employs.’
Asked, for Channel 4, if a law against treating people differently because of their race will be kept, Farage replied, reports The Guardian: ‘No … because we take the view, we are colour-blind. We as a party are colour-blind.’
Oh look, they’re so progressive that they don’t even see race! It’s UKIP who’ve taken us to a post-racial world where everyone just sees people for their soul and intelligence and emotional and practical merits! Yeah right, on opposite day.
Because 48% of UKIP’s (sadly) many supporters say they’re prejudiced against people of other races. So they clearly do see race. And they hate it when they do!
Follow Sophie on Twitter @sophwilkinson
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.