There are a number of foundational standards and principles that the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) are required to abide by in order to retain their ‘A’ status accreditation rating as a National Human Rights Institution (NHRI).
These are known as the Paris Principles, which were defined in 1991 and adopted by the United Nations in 1992.
The EHRC were reaccredited with A status in October 2022, with GANHRIGANHRI The Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions brings together and supports national human rights institutions to promote and protect human rights Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions https://ganhri.org , the UN governing body responsible for accreditation, releasing a report of recommendations to changes in the EHRC’s operations, highlighting significant areas of concern. We covered that in an article in November 2022, which we recently updated to show that of all the recommendations made, the EHRC has yet to implement a single one.
I’m not going to go through every single one of the Paris Principles highlighting the EHRCs failures, especially in regards to the trans community, but instead I’m going to focus on just one – political independence.
Political Appointments & Ideological Opposition
We have long been concerned that the appointments and selection process has been used by the UK Government to load the EHRC with anti-equality political activists, something GANHRI highlighted as a specific concern at their review.
However, the UK Government continue to abuse the appointments system, with the anti-trans ‘Minister for Women and Equalities’ Kemi Badenoch, who was recently exposed for lying in Parliament about meeting with LGBT groups in relation to the continually failed ban on Conversion Therapy, appointing new commissioners to the main Board as well as the Scotland Committee.
On the main Board she appointed Joanne Cash, who according to the EHRC Board Minutes in March 2023 has personal ties and support to Badenoch.
On the Scotland Committee she appointed Adam Tomkins, a former Scottish Conservative, and Mandy Rhodes of Holyrood Magazine, among others. Holyrood Magazine has been noted by ourselves and in our previous submissions to GANHRI as being both anti-trans and a staunch supporter of Falkner.
Further to this, and again as we suspected and highlighted right from the start to GANHRI in our EHRC Dossier, former ‘Minister for Women and Equalities’ and failed UK Prime Minister Liz Truss, who was responsible for many of the appointments to the current EHRC Board of Commissioners, has recently gone full ‘mask off’, openly showing herself to have an active and hostile ideological opposition to LGBTQLGBTQ LGBTQIA+ is an inclusive term that includes people of all genders and sexualities, such as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, queer, intersex, asexual, pansexual, and allies. While each letter in LGBTQIA+ stands for a specific group of people, the term encompasses the entire spectrum of gender fluidity and sexual identities. https://abbreviations.yourdictionary.com/what-does-lgbtqia-stand-for-full-acronym-explained.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT+, and especially trans people.
Following another visit to the USA, where she appears to have been taking instructions from her paymasters at The Heritage Foundation, she returned to the UK to file a Private Members Bill that sought to completely remove access to medical care for trans children and young people, as well as remove existing rights of trans people in accessing spaces that we have legally used for more than half a century. She has also branded all LGBTQ+ people as ‘extremists’.
In addition to this, the current Minister, Kemi Badenoch, recently visited Florida where she was highly praised by the far right, neo nazi enabling Governor Ron Desantis, who has been waging his own war on trans and LGBTQ+ people in that state in the USA, for doing the same in the UK.
In light of this, every appointment and promotion made by both Truss and Badenoch, including that of the EHRC Chair, Kishwer Falkner, should be treated as a politically motivated attempt to control a public body that is supposed to be completely independent from the UK Government.
Political Interference in Falkner’s Bullying Investigation
You may remember that Falkner was supposed to undergo an investigation into claims of bullying behaviour of staff as well as making highly unpleasant and deeply transphobic comments – an investigation that was supposed to commence in May 2023, which was prompted by a Channel 4 investigation and expose.
This investigation was promptly stopped by the Minister for Women & Equalities, Kemi Badenoch, a days weeks later, following a near revolt from Falkner’s friends and supporters in the House of Lords, of which she is still a member.
Political interference by her colleagues in the House of Lords and the UK Government stopped the investigation.
That wasn’t the end of it, though.
The investigation was restarted by then-CEO Marcial Boo early in July 2023, who was attempting to ensure that it was conducted fairly and impartially.
Boo appears to have then gone on long-term sick leave at some point between June and September 2023, which according to several sources, was due to stress from actions and pressure of EHRC Board members in relation to the investigation. He subsequently left in December 2023 – effectively hounded out.
Those same sources also tell us that a number of board members repeatedly and directly communicated with Kemi Badenoch in an attempt to get the investigation stopped again. We have been unable to independently verify this information; however, it fits with previous actions and interference.
This investigation was then ended in October 2023 with Falkner being suspiciously but entirely expectedly being ‘fully exonerated’.
As if that wasn’t enough, the EHRC’s own board minutes show the depth of that political interference.
The minutes of an ‘Extraordinary meeting of the Board’ held on 24th October 2024 show that the EHRC is indeed a puppet organisation of the UK Government.
Section 2.2, the Interim Deputy Chair states :
In other words, Board members of a supposedly independent public body directly demanded that the UK Government interfere in their own independence – ironically confirming that they are not politically independent at all.
This was followed by the EHRC receiving direct instructions from the UK Government to close the investigation and reinstate Falkner, and confirmation that Badenoch herself directed the investigation.
This is little more than a deeply trans-hostile UK Government Minister controlling a supposedly “independent public body” as part of her agenda to remove the rights of trans people in the UK.
Political Alignment
However, there is more.
There’s a short but very interesting section in the 113th Board Minutes from 14th September 2023. I refer you to Section 7, ‘Alignment between the Labour Party and EHRC policy positions’
Question:
Why would a public body that is supposedly independent from political interference need to align itself and its objectives with the aims and goals of a political party that looks like it will form the next Government?
This short section is incredibly damning – it clearly shows that the EHRC is not politically independent, but is actually operating and acting to achieve the aims and objectives of whatever Government is in power – if it was independent, it would have no need to perform such an alignment.
A Recent Volte Face
You may have picked up that the EHRC recently responded to the UK Government’s consultation for guidance on accommodating trans pupils in school, which it published on 14th March 2024.
Very weirdly, this issued response represents a near complete reversal of previously held statements and flies in the face of effectively every bit of guidance it has issued previously – the EHRC mostly manages to get the law right (although it is still pushing its unlawful and discriminatory interpretation of access to ‘single-sex spaces’).
The more cynical among us may look at this as a transparent and last-ditch attempt to prevent them from being downgraded, trying to deceive the accreditation committee by appearing to actually do their jobs.
Conclusions
As usual with anything to do with the EHRC, it’s taken a while to unravel the layers of subterfuge to get at the truth.
But as we can see from the above, from board and chair appointments, to internal investigations, to ‘political realignment’ – the evidence just keeps on mounting up which seems to show that the EHRC appears to be little more than a puppet organisation of the UK Government, at its beck and call, and doing its bidding.
The recently issued response to a consultation likely a deceptive facade and last ditch attempt to save their own skins ahead of their ‘Special Review’ by the United Nations.
It’s a sad state of affairs that a nation such as ours has sunk so low, but it’s abundantly clear that the EHRC’s political independence, like the organisation itself, is not following GANHRI’s rules.
