Reform UK’s plans to repeal the Equality Act are “shocking” and un-British, Keir Starmer has said, warning legislation that has provided decades of protection for women would be ripped up.
In a pre-recorded interview with BBC Breakfast, the prime minister said the legislation was British at its core and represented “basic values”, before arguing Reform wanted to send women back to the “old days” when they were not treated equally.
In a wide-ranging discussion, Starmer also said Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor should speak to the authorities in the UK and US about the Jeffrey Epstein scandal and defended the government’s recent U-turn on postponing local elections.
Asked by the presenter Naga Munchetty about Reform’s plans to repeal the Equality Act, Starmer said: “Can I just say how shocking it is that Reform are suggesting we tear up the Equality Act.
“This is decades of protection, it goes to basic values, one of which is should women be treated as equal as men. That is core. That is British. That is something that was fought for and for Reform to say no more, under them we are to go back to old days when women not treated equally … I shudder to think what women think of anyone who wants to rip up that proposition.”
Starmer said the act also protected people on grounds of race, and alluded to examples from the past when landlords would hang signs in their properties excluding individuals based on their race. “I believe passionately to be tolerant, compassionate and diverse is what it is to be British. [Reform’s plan] tears it up, I would genuinely like to see anyone from Reform defend the proposition that women should be treated differently.”
Earlier this week Suella Braverman, who was sacked twice as home secretary and defected to Reform earlier this year, was put forward by the Reform UK leader, Nigel Farage, as the party’s spokesperson for education, skills and equalities.
At a press conference announcing the appointment of Reform’s so-called “shadow cabinet”, Braverman said that on her first day in government she would abolish her own equalities brief and repeal the Equality Act.
Munchetty asked Starmer about the position of Mountbatten-Windsor, who has come under increasing pressure to speak to police in the UK about his dealings with Epstein.
The prime minister said: “Anybody who has any information should testify. So whether it’s Andrew or anybody else, anybody who has got relevant information should come forward to whatever the relevant body is, in this particular case we’re talking about Epstein, but there are plenty of other cases.
“Anybody who has got information relating to any aspect of violence against women and girls has, in my view, a duty to come forward, whoever they are.”
Starmer added: “One of the core principles in our system is that everybody is equal under the law, and nobody is above the law, and it is really important that is applied across the board. That is the principle. It’s a longstanding principle, it’s a very important principle of our country, our society, and it applies, and it has to apply in this case, in the same way as it would apply in any other case.”
On council elections, which the government had planned to postpone in 30 separate authorities to allow a reorganisation of local government, the prime minister said he had followed legal advice, which led him to the decision to abandon the delay and reinstate the elections for May.
