Kemi Badenoch has said that the Manchester Arena bombing, Southport attack and Nottingham stabbings 'could have been stopped if people had intervened instead of having a fear of being called racist'.
Delivering a speech in central London, the Conservative leader said: “If the security guards at the Manchester Arena weren’t afraid of being accused of racial profiling, we wouldn’t have seen a bomber walk into the venue unchecked.
“If authorities weren’t concerned that black people were overrepresented in mental health events, three people would not have been murdered in Nottingham by a man who should have been detained under the Mental Health Act.”
Ms Badenoch continued: “And if authorities hadn’t chalked up Axel Rudakubana’s violent behaviour to autism, if his head teacher hadn’t been accused of racial stereotyping when she raised concerns about him bringing a knife to school, three little girls might still be here with us.”
Public institutions have “spent so long worrying about institutional racism that they have become institutionally incompetent”, the Tory leader added.
Ms Badenoch began her speech in London by paying tribute to Henry Nowak, the student murdered in Southampton in December, whose case has led to concerns about police applying equality law. She said Henry’s family “could not have been clearer” that they do not want his murder to be used to divide.
She added: “What they want is for something good to come out of the outpouring of public shock … they want the police to become an institution that we can trust again. And if we want to honour that wish, to honour Henry’s memory, we need to ask the right question. I believe that question is why did police take an accusation of racism more seriously than the claim that Henry had been stabbed?”
Mrs Badenoch went on: “In March, I gave a speech explaining that the Conservative Party will remove identity politics from all public bodies. The speech I’m giving today is the result of work we have been doing over many months.”
She also said that rage is “not a solution” to problems with how equalities law is being interpreted. The Conservative leader said her party believed in three principles to overhaul equalities law, the first of which was “universalism”, adding: “That means every citizen must be treated as an individual, not as part of a group.”
She also said the Tories believed that “differences in outcome are not proof of discrimination”. The third principle was that the country must “rebuild trust in failing institutions, not undermine them”.
Mrs Badenoch added: “Institutions are not perfect, but we want to fix a broken system, not smash it to pieces because we are angry. And don’t get me wrong, we are angry, I am angry, but rage is not a strategy, rage is not a solution.”
The Tory leader then announced her intention to scrap the Public Sector Equality Duty as a step to reform how equalities law is applied.
