Restoration and Renewal: Equality, Merit and the National Inheritance
Equality before the law is restored as the governing principle of public life. The Equality Act 2010 is repealed and replaced with a narrower non-discrimination code that protects individuals rather than groups and keeps practical protections for disabled people. Preferences based on identity are prohibited in selection, in public procurement and in charitable and private awards. The state ends its backing for demographic targets, compulsory pay-gap reporting by demographic group and workforce equality standards in the NHS. Regulators are confined to their statutory functions. Equal pay returns to the Equal Pay Act 1970, which covers like work and work rated as equivalent under an employer’s own job evaluation scheme. The Equality and Human Rights Commission is abolished and employment conciliation is reformed.
Britain withdraws from the European Convention on Human Rights and repeals the Human Rights Act. The interpretations and administrative rules inherited from them are settled, common law remedies are retained and the Northern Ireland settlement is preserved. Judges are appointed on merit alone. In policing, identity-specific criminal aggravation is removed, standards and accountability are reset and the state stops treating communal organisations as representatives of the people they claim to speak for.
Schools teach a coherent national entitlement, supported by commissioned teaching resources and a national framework for religious education. Pupils are taught biological sex and protected from social transition, and common school practices and artistic accomplishment are restored. Funding for Christian schools is retained while state funding for other denominational schools ends. Universities and research funding are freed from identity targets. Public cultural spending is given a common purpose, the BBC Charter is renewed around impartiality and national purpose and churches, monuments and Christian heritage are protected. Civic institutions are given durable access to premises.
One law and one public life apply to everyone. English becomes the language of public administration, faces must be visible in public and common procedures apply in public institutions. Religious civil adjudication ends, future marriages between first cousins are prohibited and domestic religious slaughter ends, with restricted imports licensed. Free speech is protected by a principle that the law protects people rather than beliefs. A single threshold for criminal expression is set and offences that reach beyond it are repealed. The regulatory regime of the Online Safety Act is repealed and lawful speech is protected in universities and at work.
Elections return to voting in person. Postal votes are kept only for the armed forces, Crown servants overseas and electors certified as unable to leave home, and everyone else who cannot attend may appoint a proxy on stated grounds, as under the 1985 rules. The franchise is confined to British and Irish citizens aged 21 and over, and British citizens abroad keep the vote for five years after leaving.