Ordinary people weren’t especially shocked in October 2024 when a Labour staffer posted an advert on LinkedIn for party activists to travel to America and campaign for Democratic Party candidate Kamala Harris prior to November’s presidential election. Founded by a strange man with animus toward Donald Trump, LinkedIn was the perfect forum for such an initiative, but only after a few days did it dawn upon Labour HQ that their behaviour may qualify as electoral interference. On the basis money was involved, which it was, these activists could be slapped with charges.

Keir Starmer wasn’t convinced that it was electoral interference. He thought it was something else – something he didn’t say, but altogether different. “No big deal,” he commented to reporters.

In the past week the question of tiered policing standards has once again returned to the national discussion in the United Kingdom (UK) with the same aggression it did in 2024 following the murder of three young girls in Southport. That aftermath witnessed waves of angry protest – the state’s response was to streamline courts and cajole guilty pleas, ensuring that as many people involved were sent to jail as quickly as possible.

More than dismiss, the UK government resents the claim of two-tier policing. Keir Starmer and his closest cabinet ally, Attorney General Richard Hermer, deny its existence – as do other party leaders, including Ed Davey, leader of the Liberal Democrats. It is deeply offensive, they say, to declare that we police with fear and favour – “no evidence to support this slur exists”.

Which is great, so thank you all, but actually… it does.

Anti-racist

It is contained in a freely accessible document entitled “Police Race Action Plan”. On page 12, it explains what its anti-racist commitment means, but more importantly, what it doesn’t. “It does not mean treating everyone ‘the same’ or being ‘colour blind’ (racial equality)”, it states. So, there it is – in print, a commitment within a training guide reflecting different standards adopted by police and supported by the Conservative party, the government at the time of its composition, and its successor.

The whole model – an explicit double standard, the pride with which it is upheld through ad nauseam seminars and workshops, then a volte-face on the relentless rationalisation featuring no shortage of useful idiots barking denial – is not exclusive to the UK. It has been happening in South Africa for some time.

Cast your mind back to March 2025 when Professor Anton Harber wrote for the Daily Maverick: "It's grossly dishonest to claim South Africa has more racist laws than ever before.” Harber was taking aim at sentiments expressed by groups relating to the existence of 142 race laws on South African statute books.

Harber vacillated impressively. One minute he claimed that the emphasis was misleading and inaccurate, then pivoted to a claim these laws “were governed by our Constitution”. This style of analysis proved popular and soon, lawyers and editors and diversity, equity, and inclusion specialists joined this square-peg-round-hole expedition of contrived deductive reasoning. Race laws didn’t exist. Then they did. And when they did, they were protected.

If the phenomenon of race laws in South Africa can be traced back to one or two institutions consulting with the African National Congress around the dawn of liberation, it shouldn’t be surprising that two-tiered policing in the UK emerged from a small crop of ideological police chiefs who consulted with activist lawyers sold on the idea of “race by equity”. When the UK government was informed of the radical intervention, it appointed a man called James Cleverly to interface with the group. Cleverly, a man with a reputation for being well intentioned if not very bright, missed every meeting.

Cock-up and Conspiracy

Most political disasters are cock-ups, not conspiracies. The Police Race Action Plan in the UK appears to be a rare combination of the two.

Other initiatives established upon the two-tier theory have since come to light in the UK, eerily aligning the country with South Africa’s race laws.

A job advert for the National Audit Office in Newcastle in the north of England expressed that the role for the taxpayer-funded institution with an annual budget exceeding £110 million would only be available to candidates who are female or black.

The Stuart Ross Placement, an 11-month internship operated by Transport for London (TFL), also disqualifies candidacy by race and background, expressing preference for black women.

In 2025, internship opportunities for MI5, MI6, and the government intelligence communications body GCHQ also excluded white candidates from middle-class backgrounds.

Other institutions excluding white, middle-class candidates include the British Broadcasting Corporation, the Bank of England, Cambridge University, the House of Commons, the House of Lords, and the Senedd Commission in Wales.

There is a solid defence for these kinds of behaviours. In sections 158 and 159 of the provisions of the Equality Act, institutions or companies are legally permitted to adopt positive discrimination mechanisms to address the appearance (read: suspicion) of underrepresentation. So if there is evidence of selective policies, and if these bear legal protection – however contentious – why the rampant denial?

Orwellian

It could be that elites are just too arrogant to feel the need to explain prescripts readily available: why, they could ask, must the law be explained – surely critics, at the very least, should not be ignorant? But that doesn’t capture the manner with which the UK government has responded to accusations of two-tiered policing. Its response bears uncanny resemblance to the second-last paragraph of chapter seven of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four: “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”

Most could – and probably should – argue that elite denial is a profoundly more damaging and sinister habit than the advocacy of bad ideas. There is scope for bad ideas, accommodation even. Despite ambition, however, there will never be tolerance for denial.

So, the guidance must adjust accordingly: if you support the idea of unnatural ordering, you must brave the scrutiny. You must possess the courage of your convictions and admit to the presence and continuation of social engineering. You don’t have to be proud of it, because ultimately you can’t be, but at the very least confirm its existence – as the first point of your indignation.