News and Views 18.04.25

Society & Politics
 

Legal Definition of ‘Woman’

• Decisive Supreme Court ruling. The UK Supreme Court has unanimously and unambiguously ruled that the definition of a woman in the Equality Act should be based on biological sex. The ruling makes clear that a space or service designated as women-only cannot be used by a person born male but who identifies as a woman. The ruling will also have significant implications for trans people competing in sport, for prisons admissions, and for school admissions policies.
• Devastating blow for Scottish government – and Labour. While the ruling has sparked enormous controversy among trans-rights groups, The Spectator’s Brendan O’Neill is “gobsmacked that we apparently needed five judges to tell us something our species has known since we first came down from the trees.” The ruling is a devastating blow for the Scottish government, who brought the matter to court, and has also sent Labour in turmoil. So far (Fri morning), the Prime Minister has said nothing on the landmark ruling, and there has been no formal Government statement, or even a Cabinet minister speaking on the airwaves about it. Read also here and here.
• Unisex toilets most likely option. Transgender people already have protections against discrimination and harassment written into the Equality Act, but trans rights campaigners are likely to put pressure on the government to change the Act further in their favour. Unisex lavatories for trans people are expected to be introduced in buildings across Britain, as the most practical way to respect trans preferences while staying within the law. Influential charity Stonewall, which has long championed trans rights, is now facing a crisis that has prompted even one of its founders to turn against it - Simon Fanshawe urging bosses to abandon the group. Meanwhile, a number of organisations, including Lloyds Bank, have pledged “solidarity” with transgender staff after the Supreme Court ruling.  

Rape Gang Scandal

• Growing calls for rape-gang national inquiry. Having promised to hold five local inquiries in areas where ‘grooming gangs’ were operating, it is now unclear, other than in Oldham, how many will actually be held. (Read conflicting reports here and here). Sir Keir Starmer has consistently refused to launch a national inquiry into the scandal. Now Blue Labour, an influential group within the Labour Party, is insisting on a full investigation, its founder, Lord Glasman, stating: “We call for an immediate national inquiry with full powers of arrest. This is an evil that has got to be seen to be public.” Neil Basu, too, once the UK’s most senior Asian policeman, has said that political correctness in Rotherham was wrong and calls for a grooming gangs inquiry.
• Labour MPs complicit in cover-up? According to GB News, at least 50 towns across the UK have been scarred by the largely Pakistani rape gangs – unknown thousands of victims, spanning generations. Sir Trevor Phillips, former chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, said the decision not to hold an Inquiry was “so obviously political”; Labour not wanting to offend those from a Pakistani/Muslim background in Labour-held seats and councils. Deputy PM Angela Rayner, Minister for Local Government Jim McMahon (also former leader of Oldham Council), and Debbie Abrahams MP are claimed to have been complicit in the cover-up. Meanwhile, a National Archive for the Survivors of Grooming Gangs is being set up, “to record the testimony of every single survivor we can find, to create a historical record of the atrocity which has taken place in our country over the last four decades.” Read also here.

Anti-White Discrimination

• Police chief seeks legalisation of discrimination against white British candidates. The head of West Yorkshire Police, John Robins, has said the law should be changed in order to boost the number of ethnic minorities in his force and across the country. It comes as the force faces a backlash for putting a temporary block on the hiring of white candidates – a move tantamount to positive discrimination, currently illegal in England and Wales. All 10,000-plus officers and staff at West Yorkshire Police are undertaking a two-day cultural awareness training course focused on black culture and the slave trade as part of efforts to become an “anti-racist” organisation. It has also come to light that police officers at Thames Valley, one of Britain’s biggest forces , are being taught that they have ‘white privilege’.
• West Yorkshire Police denies anti-white racism. A police whistleblower has confirmed that white officers (or potential officers) are being discriminated against in hiring policy, with black and far east Asian candidates being provided with a ‘gold’ ranking, those of south-east Asian origin ‘silver’, while white applicants (including Eastern European) are ‘bronze’. But West Yorkshire Police has denied any anti-white racism, and the county’s Mayor, Tracy Brabin, said: "There is no discrimination against white applicants at all." Read also here and here.
• NHS ‘discriminates’ against white job applicants. It is not only the Police that is said to discriminate against white job applicants. Evidence suggests that NHS Trusts also routinely do so – by manipulating interview shortlists in favour of black and ethnic minority candidates. The rules make it mandatory for ethnic minorities to be shortlisted for interviews if they apply; additionally, managers have to justify hiring white British nationals, while race is also used as a “tie-breaker”. Meanwhile, ethnic minority students have been offered £5,000 more to become teachers in Wales as part of an 'anti-racist' scheme. Read also here.

Israel / Gaza War

• Hamas challenges UK terror group status. Hamas is using the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) to challenge its proscription as a terrorist organisation in the UK. British lawyers acting on behalf of Hamas have submitted a 106-page legal application to Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, appealing against the Government’s designation of the organisation as terrorists. It claims the ban breaches Hamas supporters’ human rights under the ECHR by “unlawfully restricting” their freedom of speech and rights to protest. It also says it is disproportionate and claims Hamas poses “no threat to the UK people”, and that banning it breaches Britain’s obligations under international law to be “not complicit in a genocide”.
• Anti-Israel lawyer fighting to legalise Hamas. Hamas UK lawyer Fahad Ansari, a south-London based solicitor, is one of the triumvirate of UK lawyers representing Hamas. He has apparently made a series of shocking statements regarding the Israel-Gaza conflict on social media over a period spanning years. These include claiming that Hamas is a “legitimate resistance movement” protecting the Palestinian people from “UK-sanctioned genocide” and that it is “more popular than ever before” in the wake of its barbaric attacks on Israel two years ago. It is widely believed the recent legal bid is likely to fail. Read also here and here.
• Hamas 'quietly drops' thousands of deaths from casualty figures. New research shows that Hamas has quietly dropped thousands of people it previously listed as having been killed last year from its Gaza war casualty figures. Charity, Honest Reporting stated; “Hamas’s new March 2025 fatality list quietly drops 3,400 fully ‘identified’ deaths listed in its August and October 2024 reports – including 1,080 children. These ‘deaths’ never happened.” Read also here.
• Hamas alters demographics of those killed. Similarly, Hamas has admitted that 72% of combat-aged fatalities are aged 13-55 and are men - the demographic category aligning with Hamas combatants. Hamas had previously claimed that 70% of casualties were women and children. An earlier report, by the Henry Jackson Society, suggested that Hamas’ lists “are so unreliable that the world’s media shouldn’t be quoting them as reliable.” Mainstream media is persistent in reporting Hamas’ claim that more than 50,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the Israel offensive began.

Antisemitism

• Irish antisemitism is ‘deeply embedded’: According to a poll of over a thousand Irish Christians – mostly Catholics - a third said Jews ‘talk too much about the Holocaust’ and have ‘too much control over global affairs’. 36% of Irish respondents said Jews have too much power in the business world. Only 11% support Israel in the recent conflict compared to 45% siding with Palestinians, with two-thirds believing that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza. 31% of Irish Christians believe Jews ‘don’t care what happens to anyone but their own kind’ and are hated ‘because of the way they behave’. The report found anti-Israel attitudes to be ‘deeply embedded’ and ‘pervasive’ in Ireland. A similar survey carried out among UK Christians also revealed a surprising amount of antisemitism, though not as severe, while a study of American believers indicated much higher levels of support for Israel.

• Net zero ‘is destroying the Church of England’. Net zero targets are killing off the Church of England, clergy and wardens have warned. Access to new oil or gas boilers has been restricted under a Church of England commitment to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2030. The policy has left dozens of churches in the cold for months on end, with rural churches bearing the brunt of the policy. Priests and wardens have warned that the green energy drive is putting parishioners’ health at risk, driving down church attendance and causing damp to rot historic buildings. The CofE recommends heat pumps, electric boilers, solar panels and low-energy options like under-pew heaters. But many older, poorly insulated stone churches are not suited to these technologies. Even when technically possible, the cost of green technology is prohibitive.
• Rural church versus ‘activist’ energy adviser. St John the Baptist in Tideswell has been without central heating since a storm wrecked its gas boilers in October 2023. Church wardens have blamed the cold on the Diocese of Derby’s (over-)strict interpretation of Church law – which they claim has been driven by the views of a zealous ‘activist’ energy adviser, John Beardmore, the diocese’s volunteer energy adviser and an engineer, who openly supports Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion.
• YWAM accused of public shaming and rituals to ‘cure’ sexual sin. The Guardian recently published an investigation into the missionary movement Youth With A  Mission (YWAM). Some former members had described negative practices over the course of two decades, including pressure to confess sins such as homosexual thoughts, sex outside marriage, abortions, watching pornography, disobeying a leader or having ‘rebellious thoughts’ - often in group settings. Some were forced to apologise publicly. In some cases, volunteers described the use of rituals similar to exorcisms to banish demons from those with same-sex attraction or people who acknowledged having sex outside marriage. One former YWAM-er said, “People should be aware that this isn’t all happy-clappy. A lot of people get traumatised.”
• One-sided 'Guardian' report. YWAM said they were “deeply grieved to hear reports that spiritual practices intended for healing were instead used in coercive or shaming ways”, and promised to take corrective measures in the minority of instances where this had occurred. A lengthier Guardian report on YWAM seems to suggest YWAM’s conservative evangelical theology as being in itself evidence of abuse or harm, and the article fails to give credit for the way countless thousands of YWAMers lives’ are positively impacted after spending time with the missionary group, or the multifarious positive effects of YWAM’s outreaches across the world.