//…because "positive action" is lawful but "positive discrimination" is not. I don't know how far this is meddling with people's rights and how far it's just quibbling over words.//
But it isn’t simply meddling with words. Any recruitment system which treats people differently because of the colour of their skin or their sex is discrimination.
/Instead, he blamed the debacle on legal advice that incorrectly said a push in 2020 and 2021 to fast-track ethnic minority and female recruits into training slots was positive action - which is a legal way to improve diversity - when it was actually positive discrimination, which is unlawful.//
How anybody could advise the RAF that “fast tracking” ethnic minority and female recruits into training slots – at the expense of white or male recruits – can be anything other than discrimination is very hard to fathom. But that is unsurprising in today’s atmosphere. Quite why the RAF felt the need to recruit more ethnic minority or female staff is unclear. Perhaps they could explain why it matters if their workforce is “unbalanced” provided the opportunity to enlist is open to all and its recruitment process does not discriminate against any particular group. The London Fire Brigade led a similar campaign a few years ago and they couldn’t explain its purpose either, other than to say it wanted its workforce to be “more representative” of the community it serves. How that matters at all provided the people they have can put fires out and rescue people from burning buildings was not made clear. Quite why any organisation needs “diversity targets” has never been satisfactorily explained. Provided discrimination does not occur that’s all that should matter.
There are two tragedies resulting from this debacle: firstly a number of probably very capable and suitable recruits have been turned away or at least discouraged from enlisting; secondly it took the resignation of the RAF’s head of recruitment, Group Captain Lizzie Nicholl, to expose this matter. Group Captain Nicholl refused to implement the discriminatory policies promulgated and endorsed by the RAF’s most senior officer, no less than the Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Mike Wigston, because she had received reliable legal advice that they were unlawful. ACM Wigston had in mind increasing the ethnic minority quota of RAF personnel to as much as 20%, which he saw as a “defining goal” of his tenure (for reasons, it seems, known only to him). Only last February, in evidence to parliament, he assured MPs that there was no unlawful discrimination against white men. Now his policy has been exposed as illegal the RAF (i.e. the taxpayer) faces a bill for compensation to those discriminated against and to Gp Cap Nicholl, whose bill alone will probably top £1m.
This “wokery” is destroying or hindering large numbers of institutions in the UK, but still those promoting it will baulk no criticism. ACM Wigston (now conveniently retired) will face no sanctions and nor will his successor, Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton, who attempted to perpetuate the policy. Whilst these ridiculous philosophies are allowed to infest our institutions with no sanctions taken against those responsible for them, it will continue.