Dominic Raab is no more keen on the Equality Act than he is on the Human Rights Act
Esher and Walton MP Dominic Raab has just been made justice minister alongside Michael Gove.
Raab is a longtime critic of the Human Rights Act – this appointment looks like David Cameron’s way of saying he is serious about scrapping it. In January 2014 Raab voted to allow human rights grounds to be used to prevent a foreign criminal being deported only in cases where there would be a breach of right to life or the right not to be tortured.
In 2013, he voted to remove the duty on the Commission for Equality and Human Rights to work to support the development of a society in which people’s ability to achieve their potential is not limited by prejudice or discrimination.
And in 2013 he also voted against making it illegal to discriminate on grounds of caste.
Raab also took an unusual stance on gender equality in 2011, when he expressed his fears that ‘from the cradle to the grave, men are getting a raw deal’. He attacked the ‘obnoxious bigotry’ of feminists and complained that men work longer hours than women (no mention of pay gap etc).
“While we have some of the toughest anti-discrimination laws in the world, we are blind to some of the most flagrant discrimination – against men.”
Seeming to have fallen at the first hurdle – assuming that feminism is anti-men – Raab also suggested that men start ‘burning their briefs’, presumably as a long- overdue retaliation against the feminists of the sixties (who did not, in fact, burn their bras.)
Raab’s diatribe continued:
“Britain’s not perfect, and we will never eradicate all human prejudice.”
This is especially true when we do not understand that prejudice. Another interesting choice from David Cameron.
Ruby Stockham is a staff writer at Left Foot Forward. Follow her on Twitter
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398 Responses to “He thinks feminists are ‘obnoxious bigots’: meet the new justice minister”
Rex
Very well said!
Rex
Debbie, not all men were allowed to vote before either. Suffrage was created by men, then rich white women started their own version. Voting was more of a class issue than a gender one. So a precise reversal of history would be to allow poor women and young women who agreed to sign up for military drafting the vote, alongside poor men who failed to sign the military draft. How is it you call yourself an equalitist and you are ignorant to the fact that not all men had the vote?
Next… are you serious? No women were allowed to work? Since when? Are you describing the UK still or have you jumped over to the Middle East to inflate your point? Let’s stick to just one cultural group shall we? So the English and their colonies. Since when were women not allowed to work?
Don’t stop there…. women will be fully responsible for their husbands debts as well as their own. If their husband, who accounts for 75% of household spending yet earns considerably less, spends it all buying trousers for himself, and his wife can’t pay, then she must go to debtors prison. Meanwhile her husbands sexy new trousers have attracted the attention of another lady that he can enjoy the company of, albeit discretely, and all the while still putting his debts on to his imprisoned wife.
It is less about being counted as ‘property’ and more as being considered someone elses legal responsibility or liablity in the case of someone spend happy. In the Middle East, if you wanted to go there, it’s much the same to this day, hence why men are given work by priority because not working means going to jail for failing to pay your families combined debts. The wife has no legal responsibility to contribute any of the money she’s allowed to earn, to the household purse. She could, if she desired, buy perfumes and oils and fine fabrics for herself while her children starve, and there would be no consequence for her. Her husband would take the full brunt of all of that.
Rex
Absolute nonsense Debbie. Where are your facts?
Rex
Looks like my reply to this didn’t submit, but basically, just pointed out how needy and pathetic you are and how you’re still copying the things I say to you like an infant without a mind of their own. You claimed to be some engineer designing things but you’ve proven your emotional maturity to be far lower than someone in your position should have. It’s frightening, sad and pathetic all at once.
fmf
I didn’t.