It may surprise you to learn that race discrimination law very rarely focuses on whether someone has been ‘racist’. What amounts to racism seems to be growing ever more contentious. I commonly now see people arguing that pointing out racist attitudes is itself racist. /1

The law doesn’t ask whether someone hates members of another race. It looks at whether, say, an employee’s race was a factor (even sub-consciously) in why they were treated less favourably than colleagues (this is called “direct discrimination”) /2

The law will also look at whether an apparently neutral “provision, criterion, or practice” puts employees at a particular disadvantage (this is called “indirect discrimination”). But my aim is not to describe the law, it’s to suggest a different way of looking at racism /3

Read 15 tweets

Sean Jones QC

@seanjonesqc

Aug 2

As the candidates for PM burnish their “anti-woke” credentials, the reaction on Twitter has been a sort of haughty bemusement: Don’t they know the dictionary definition of “woke”? What’s wrong with being “woke” anyway? The woke need to wake up /1

It doesn’t matter what we think woke should mean. It doesn’t really even matter what the candidates think it means. Only two things matter:
1. Out there on the far right and the weird right they are clear what it means; and
2. The candidates and others are taking it mainstream /2

It should be immediately obvious that it’s an enemy signifier. A woke person is the enemy. Woke ideas are unacceptable because woke people hold them and woke people are unacceptable because they hold those ideas. /3

Read 7 tweets

Sean Jones QC

@seanjonesqc

Jul 21

Last night's Starmer #Brexit thread threw up hundreds of variations of the same theme:
1. Starmer is really a Rejoiner
2. He has a cunning plan
3. Cleave to Hard Brexit to get elected
4. Mend fences with the EU
5. Switch to Rejoin-friendly strategies once he has a grip on power.

This is supposedly a politically clever strategy. I don't think it is. I'm going to say why in this thread so that I don't have to set it out endlessly in individual responses. /2

Before I go any further though, I'm sure to be challenged to say what I think he should do. So let me get that out of the way. /3

Read 34 tweets

Sean Jones QC

@seanjonesqc

Jul 20

@campbellclaret

I have just listened to Keir Starmer on @campbellclaret and @RoryStewartUK's podcast and have been reflecting further on his Brexit position. /1

There are two things which stand out for me. The first is that like all Conservative politicians, he invokes the need to heal the divisions Brexit has caused but wants to do so by leaning into the Hard Brexit project. /2

I know all the "he has to to get elected" arguments, so I beg you, on pain of blocking, don't make me run through all that again. What I want to do instead is take him at face value. He says he means it, I pay him the respect of assuming that he does. /3

Read 11 tweets

Sean Jones QC

@seanjonesqc

Jul 11

@Joanna__Hardy

Part of the problem communicating how bad things are at the criminal bar is that the truth sounds crazy. Talking to @Joanna__Hardy she tells me that if the fee for a first appearance in the Mags was increased by 100% it would still only be £100. /1

It costs me more than that to have a guy come to my house, stare at my boiler and say “it’ll cost yer”. I don’t begrudge him his callout fee because I know he has hard-won expertise and I’m a buffoon. But think about the expertise barristers have /2

If you get a criminal tenancy you likely have been consistently amongst the best of your cohort at every stage of your education. You will have developed Olympian devotion to deferred gratification and built up sleep-denying debt. /3

Read 8 tweets

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