Attempt to remove the Public Sector Equality Duty is ill-judged, misconceived, and dangerous

16th June 2026

The Workers Party condemns the recent suggestions by the Tory party and others, seeking the removal of the Public Sector Equality Duty. This backward step assumes an even more egregious character for the citizens of Northern Ireland in the light of the violent fascist and racist criminality in recent days.

This backward step will assume an even more egregious character for Northern Ireland.

The public Sector Equality Duty was first introduced in Britain in April 2001. In Northern Ireland, specifically Section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 imposes statutory duties on designated public authorities to have due regard to the need to promote equality of opportunity in relation to nine categories and to have the desirability of promoting good relations between persons of different religious beliefs, political opinion and racial group. The section 75 duty requires public authorities to have due regard to the need to promote equality of opportunity in relation to the identified equality categories.

The Workers Party has highlighted that the public sector duty is regarded as an important part of the mechanisms for ensuring the fulfilment of the aims of anti-discrimination legislation and the 1998 Act also provides a mechanism for obtaining a remedy for breaches of section 75.

The Tory Proposal is ill-judged, misconceived, and dangerous. It appears to ignore particularly in the case of Northern Ireland, that the 1998 act was passed by the UK Parliament to make provision for the government of Northern Ireland for the purpose of implementing the agreement reached at multi-party talks and which became the subject of an international agreement between the British and Irish Governments and lodged with the United Nations.

While the Workers Party has frequently criticised the sectarian structures of the agreement and recognises both the inadequacies of the equality duty and the reality that the bourgeois state cannot resolve the fundamental issues endemic in a capitalist society, an attack on any mechanism for tackling discrimination and promoting equality is ill advised and dangerous. Rolling back the current obligations would be a further attack on workers and vulnerable sections of the working class, including women, minorities, and disabled people and would seriously disadvantage those already marginalised by the social and economic inequality arising from the capitalist system.