Imagine a world - or a continent, or a country - divided between two ideologies. When one defects on a supposedly neutral programme, how should the other respond?
One of the beneifts of free markets is that you're free to spell benefits any way the market will bear :-).
If a Conservative government is elected in 2029, what approach do you think they should follow on anti-Conservative positions embedded in 'impartial' and state organisations? (I imagine the optimal strategy is 'wait and see how this goes in America, and adjust in light of that', but if you had to pick now).
Obviously a very complex matter, but a few headline things would be:
- Be much more explicit that cultural matters are political and subject to impartiality rules, making this crystal clear and unambiguous.
- Be explicit that taking account of any 'positive action' DEI/EDI considerations in procurement, hiring, funding of research or elsewhere is not acceptable. Where this is happening currently it must stop.
- Make clear that any leaders who then flout this will be fired, and be willing to follow through (ideally in a more targeted way, not just anyone who has promoted this in the past).
- Repeal Part 11 of the Equality Act 2010. This contains the Public Sector Equality Duty (often used to justify much of the worst excesses) and the provisions on so-called 'positive action'. This would retain the bulk of the Act which rightly stops you discriminating against people for their sex, race, disability, etc.
- Stop funding charities which consistently campaign on left-wing or progressive issues.
It is strange to me that the government funds charities, and especially strange that it funds charities that lobby it. I would be more comfortable with stopping funding all lobbying charities, not just left wing ones.
You don't mention it, but Scott's article on how the USAID cut was abhorent because PEPFAR is great did leave me thinking "so you're saying he should reinstate PEPFAR, but cut everything else?"
Some good points in here about what is happening but I'm wondering when various people think we arrived at this period of " formerly trusted and impartial institutions" as well as when we left it. In the US, with ethnicity, presumably somewhere between Rosa Parks in 1955 and Colin Kaepernick in 2016? The UK has a pretty good recent record on racial discrimination but you don't have to be exceptionally old to remember the MacPherson Report on the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry. In other areas of discrimination, same sex couples have only been allowed to marry for just over a decade and it's also just over a decade since the first CofE female bishop, to pick the first couple of examples that come to mind. I think your analysis of the mindset is probably right but if this reset aligns with your own view then some idea of where we should be reset to, seems a fair question.
I think you probably need to specify what an institution is being impartial about. No institution is claiming to be impartial about everything, and the defection only occurs when it's being partial about something it claims to be impartial on. The police were defecting on race in Stephen Lawrence's day because they claimed to be impartial but weren't. The marriage law wasn't defecting in excluding gay couples - it openly defined what constituted a marriage in law at that point. It isn't impartial about what counts as a marriage now either! (Which is good. The one thing marriage law is not supposed to be impartial about is what counts as a marriage!)
The CofE wasn't defecting in excluding women from leadership, just like they're not defecting now when they exclude non-Anglicans from leadership. If they'd said women could be bishops, but secretly blocked every appointment, that would be defection.
Yes, I see your point. That's helpful. There is a difference between impartial and unfair, between defection and 'legitimate' change, perhaps? There will be those who think that the CofE deciding to ordain women / appoint female bishops is a defection in itself, though. Are they right, because it's not the core purpose of the CofE to promote equality, or wrong because it was openly debated within the church and agreed, or wrong because 'leading' on moral issues is part of the core purpose of the CofE, or perhaps something else? Where is the edge of defection and the start of another mechanism for change? Same sex marriage was a gradual process - living together went from illegal/blind eyes being turned, to legal but disapproved of, to Section 28, to mostly acceptable, to civil partnership, to a change in the law on marriage. I'm wondering which parts of that process did or did not involve defection.
In the sense that Iain is using it (carrying out change by going around the instituational proccess instead of following it) none of these steps were done through defection - they were all done openly and democratically.
Not defecting doesn't guarentee you're making the right decision, but it does at least mean you're following the right process, and encourages those who disagree with you to stick to the process!
Yes, I don't think there was any 'defection' involved in gay rights (with the caveat I'm not that familiar with what happened pre-1980, other than in headline terms). Policies on both sides were taken forward by legitimate, democratic means and the organs of the state then complied with the political decisions, whether those were implementing Section 28 or implementing same sex marriage.
A good contrast would be on gender self-ID, where the government considered it, consulted on it and then explicitly rejected it - but then most civil service departments, the NHS, the prison service and the judiciary introduced it anyway.
Section 28 was a reaction to concern that local authorities via schools were starting to promote the idea that same sex relationships were 'normal'. It became a feature of the 1987 election campaign - there was a lot of exaggeration but some truth in it. I think, by your definition, that's defection, isn't it?
I was at school when Section 28 was enacted, and a teacher when it was repealed. My memory is it was fairly effective in burying discussion in schools for a while but not right through to 2003, so that's more defection. Maybe gentle defection is part of how things change.
School teachers promoting same sex relationships could be a defection against cultural norms of what ways teachers were permitted to influence their pupils, in your sense of defection, though milder than your examples if there's no explict law being broken.
Teachers going back to doing this before Section 28 was repealed exactly matches your description of defection, so I don't understand why you can't see the parallel here? (I was in school till not long before 2003 and never experienced this, so I think the scale was orders of magnitude different to more recent defections, but assuming Matt's description is accurate for the school he was in.)
I'm going to come back to this detailed article to give it greater thought, but I have two points (they are not necessarily consistent!)
First, the character of a country and it's shared values is so important, when it comes to honouring servicemen and women who risked their lives and lost their lives, for fellow citizens. I am from a military family. I was at Arlington Cemetery last September and I approved the continuing American dedication to honouring their military dead.
When I learned that, because of DOGE and executive orders, the service stories of female and non-white servicemen had been removed from the Arlington website, I was furious. How could that possibly be important to them? Is it just racism and sexism? So for me, that has discredited the Republican claim to be "course correcting". Any sane Conservative would have immediately apologised, and made it right. These are not honourable people.
Secondly, your point about how even the smallest amount of DEI ideology can poison the well (I paraphrase). I have stopped looking for volunteering opportunities because I don't accept gender ideology - and it is everywhere, even at the community garden, the RSPCA charity shop etc. I was at a volunteering fair last year and I asked the Girl Guides if they were letting boys join. I was told firmly that they didn't admit boys. After taking a breath I rephrased as "boys, who identify as girls?" to which the answer was a smirking "yes". So a policy I don't support, and they were gaslighting me too. I am probably just one of many who is no longer playing along.
Unfortunately I think it is better to understand Trump/Republicans as hating anything Democrats liked, rather than making a measured course correction. (I think Ukraine is to some extent a victim of this. Trump can't quite see in what way supporting Ukraine is woke, but everyone he hates supports Ukraine and the friend of my enemy is my enemy.)
One of the beneifts of free markets is that you're free to spell benefits any way the market will bear :-).
If a Conservative government is elected in 2029, what approach do you think they should follow on anti-Conservative positions embedded in 'impartial' and state organisations? (I imagine the optimal strategy is 'wait and see how this goes in America, and adjust in light of that', but if you had to pick now).
Obviously a very complex matter, but a few headline things would be:
- Be much more explicit that cultural matters are political and subject to impartiality rules, making this crystal clear and unambiguous.
- Be explicit that taking account of any 'positive action' DEI/EDI considerations in procurement, hiring, funding of research or elsewhere is not acceptable. Where this is happening currently it must stop.
- Make clear that any leaders who then flout this will be fired, and be willing to follow through (ideally in a more targeted way, not just anyone who has promoted this in the past).
- Repeal Part 11 of the Equality Act 2010. This contains the Public Sector Equality Duty (often used to justify much of the worst excesses) and the provisions on so-called 'positive action'. This would retain the bulk of the Act which rightly stops you discriminating against people for their sex, race, disability, etc.
- Stop funding charities which consistently campaign on left-wing or progressive issues.
It is strange to me that the government funds charities, and especially strange that it funds charities that lobby it. I would be more comfortable with stopping funding all lobbying charities, not just left wing ones.
Yes, that would also be fine with me.
You don't mention it, but Scott's article on how the USAID cut was abhorent because PEPFAR is great did leave me thinking "so you're saying he should reinstate PEPFAR, but cut everything else?"
Some good points in here about what is happening but I'm wondering when various people think we arrived at this period of " formerly trusted and impartial institutions" as well as when we left it. In the US, with ethnicity, presumably somewhere between Rosa Parks in 1955 and Colin Kaepernick in 2016? The UK has a pretty good recent record on racial discrimination but you don't have to be exceptionally old to remember the MacPherson Report on the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry. In other areas of discrimination, same sex couples have only been allowed to marry for just over a decade and it's also just over a decade since the first CofE female bishop, to pick the first couple of examples that come to mind. I think your analysis of the mindset is probably right but if this reset aligns with your own view then some idea of where we should be reset to, seems a fair question.
I think you probably need to specify what an institution is being impartial about. No institution is claiming to be impartial about everything, and the defection only occurs when it's being partial about something it claims to be impartial on. The police were defecting on race in Stephen Lawrence's day because they claimed to be impartial but weren't. The marriage law wasn't defecting in excluding gay couples - it openly defined what constituted a marriage in law at that point. It isn't impartial about what counts as a marriage now either! (Which is good. The one thing marriage law is not supposed to be impartial about is what counts as a marriage!)
The CofE wasn't defecting in excluding women from leadership, just like they're not defecting now when they exclude non-Anglicans from leadership. If they'd said women could be bishops, but secretly blocked every appointment, that would be defection.
Yes, I see your point. That's helpful. There is a difference between impartial and unfair, between defection and 'legitimate' change, perhaps? There will be those who think that the CofE deciding to ordain women / appoint female bishops is a defection in itself, though. Are they right, because it's not the core purpose of the CofE to promote equality, or wrong because it was openly debated within the church and agreed, or wrong because 'leading' on moral issues is part of the core purpose of the CofE, or perhaps something else? Where is the edge of defection and the start of another mechanism for change? Same sex marriage was a gradual process - living together went from illegal/blind eyes being turned, to legal but disapproved of, to Section 28, to mostly acceptable, to civil partnership, to a change in the law on marriage. I'm wondering which parts of that process did or did not involve defection.
In the sense that Iain is using it (carrying out change by going around the instituational proccess instead of following it) none of these steps were done through defection - they were all done openly and democratically.
Not defecting doesn't guarentee you're making the right decision, but it does at least mean you're following the right process, and encourages those who disagree with you to stick to the process!
Yes, I don't think there was any 'defection' involved in gay rights (with the caveat I'm not that familiar with what happened pre-1980, other than in headline terms). Policies on both sides were taken forward by legitimate, democratic means and the organs of the state then complied with the political decisions, whether those were implementing Section 28 or implementing same sex marriage.
A good contrast would be on gender self-ID, where the government considered it, consulted on it and then explicitly rejected it - but then most civil service departments, the NHS, the prison service and the judiciary introduced it anyway.
Section 28 was a reaction to concern that local authorities via schools were starting to promote the idea that same sex relationships were 'normal'. It became a feature of the 1987 election campaign - there was a lot of exaggeration but some truth in it. I think, by your definition, that's defection, isn't it?
I was at school when Section 28 was enacted, and a teacher when it was repealed. My memory is it was fairly effective in burying discussion in schools for a while but not right through to 2003, so that's more defection. Maybe gentle defection is part of how things change.
I'm afraid I don't see any real similarity between what you describe and what has happened over the last decade.
School teachers promoting same sex relationships could be a defection against cultural norms of what ways teachers were permitted to influence their pupils, in your sense of defection, though milder than your examples if there's no explict law being broken.
Teachers going back to doing this before Section 28 was repealed exactly matches your description of defection, so I don't understand why you can't see the parallel here? (I was in school till not long before 2003 and never experienced this, so I think the scale was orders of magnitude different to more recent defections, but assuming Matt's description is accurate for the school he was in.)
I'm going to come back to this detailed article to give it greater thought, but I have two points (they are not necessarily consistent!)
First, the character of a country and it's shared values is so important, when it comes to honouring servicemen and women who risked their lives and lost their lives, for fellow citizens. I am from a military family. I was at Arlington Cemetery last September and I approved the continuing American dedication to honouring their military dead.
When I learned that, because of DOGE and executive orders, the service stories of female and non-white servicemen had been removed from the Arlington website, I was furious. How could that possibly be important to them? Is it just racism and sexism? So for me, that has discredited the Republican claim to be "course correcting". Any sane Conservative would have immediately apologised, and made it right. These are not honourable people.
Secondly, your point about how even the smallest amount of DEI ideology can poison the well (I paraphrase). I have stopped looking for volunteering opportunities because I don't accept gender ideology - and it is everywhere, even at the community garden, the RSPCA charity shop etc. I was at a volunteering fair last year and I asked the Girl Guides if they were letting boys join. I was told firmly that they didn't admit boys. After taking a breath I rephrased as "boys, who identify as girls?" to which the answer was a smirking "yes". So a policy I don't support, and they were gaslighting me too. I am probably just one of many who is no longer playing along.
Unfortunately I think it is better to understand Trump/Republicans as hating anything Democrats liked, rather than making a measured course correction. (I think Ukraine is to some extent a victim of this. Trump can't quite see in what way supporting Ukraine is woke, but everyone he hates supports Ukraine and the friend of my enemy is my enemy.)