Zia Yusuf gets his arse handed to him on Newsnight over Equality Act

Reform UK’s Zia Yusuf has just had his arse handed to him on Newsnight. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer fella.

Zia Yusuf interrogated on Reform wanting to scrap quality act

The newly named (supposed) Reform Shadow Home Secretary appeared on Newsnight to talk about his new role. But he was met with a sharp interrogation from Victoria Derbyshire about Suella Braverman’s announcement that she would “rip up” the Equality Act.

In her speech, Braverman said she would get rid of the “divisive notion of protected characteristics”. That “divisive notion”, for anyone who needs a reminder, is that you can’t be discriminated against because of your sex, pregnancy, race, religion, disability, age, sexuality, gender reassignment, marriage, or belief.

However, Reform hasn’t actually been able to answer what would “rip up” and how discrimination would be policed, which is where Yusuf fell foul.

What would they actually scrap?

After confusingly saying that millionaires would go to the top of the list (as if they didn’t already), Yusuf was stopped by Derbyshire, who pulled him up on who exactly would be affected.

If I may go through the protected characteristics and what you want to get rid of, because that’s not clear to me.

So Amnesty say the Equality Act is the legal guarantee that you can’t be sacked for being pregnant, you can’t be refused housing because of your race and you can’t be harassed at work because you are disabled or gay. So how are you going to protect those people?

Yusuf, of course, didn’t answer this

We will make sure that there are measures to ensure those things do not happen

He was cut off by Derbyshire asking, “How?” To which he replied that this will be done through legislation, which is what the Equality Act is:

Yusuf: Through legislation that’s exactly the sort of thing we will do

Derbyshire: right so you’re going to scrap the Equality Act, but you’re still going to protect for example pregnant women from being sacked because they’re pregnant in a new act?

Yusuf: yes that’s exactly what we’re going to do

Yusuf attempts to bluster about what “the problem” with the Equality Act is, but Derbyshire cuts him off, asking:

so will it be the same act with a different label?

Yusuf goes on to say that there are

so many parts of the equality act which are so unfit for purpose.

Let’s be honest, from Reform’s track record, it’s probably going to be the parts of the Act that stop you being bastards to trans people and immigrants isn’t it?

Still no answer?

He does, however, come back to a big Reform talking point, which is that young white working-class boys are the ones really struggling. This is actually something he comes back to many times. Because Reform knows while they may not have the young vote, they do have their grandparents’ votes.

Instead, Derbyshire pulled him back to who actually would be affected and brilliantly championed disabled people:

There are 17 million people in this country with disabilities, that’s 25% of the population. This act means if you have a disability you’ve got an equal right to a job, equal access to public transport or really practical stuff like, most people don’t even think about this, that doorframes have to be a particular size so that people using a wheelchair can literally get in and out of a building.

Do you not want to protect those people?

You could see the contempt on Yusuf’s face as she reads that out, because he and Reform couldn’t give a fuck. Instead, it seemed like he found the whole thing tedious.

When pushed, he said:

You can expect those things to be protected

Still, Derbyshire carried on:

So which of the protected characteristics do you not want to protect anymore? Because I’m not clear?

It’s clear who Reform actually wants to protect

In the end, Derbyshire listed every single protected characteristic, and Yusuf said Reform would protect every single one. But if this is true, what’s the fucking point of claiming you want to rip up the Equality Act?

Instead, what he closed with was:

We’ve got to ask ourselves why white working class boys are doing so badly, and why this act in its current form industrialises discrimination against them

This, by the way, is completely fucking untrue. It’s not equality to blame for working-class boys having a lack of opportunity.

Equality didn’t close the mines and shipyards without giving working-class communities another way to thrive. It didn’t prioritise the privately educated whilst locking poorer kids in low-paid apprenticeships. Equality doesn’t give the higher-paid jobs to their useless sons over hardworking, less wealthy young men.

It’s clear as day that this is just Reform using working-class people to get votes.

Scrapping the Equality Act isn’t about giving everyone an equal chance, it’s about point scoring and using working-class boys as cannon fodder – as usual. Zia Yusuf’s disastrous appearance on Newsnight showed that.

Featured image via the Canary