“His bigotry and hatred has already landed in the UK, where foundations are withdrawing funds from projects helping disadvantaged communities and companies are backtracking on commitments to fight the climate crisis."
Almost 25,000 people have signed a petition calling on Donald Trump stops exporting bigotry and hate beyond the US borders.
Launched by the Good Law Project, the petition highlights the growing influence of Trump’s anti-diversity push on the UK.
“His bigotry and hatred has already landed in the UK, where foundations are withdrawing funds from projects helping disadvantaged communities and companies are backtracking on commitments to fight the climate crisis,” the Good Law Project states.
Since returning to the White House, Trump has dismantled all federal Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programmes and has urged the private sector to follow suit. Several major corporations, including McDonald’s, Meta, Walmart, and Amazon, have responded by scaling back or abandoning their DEI policies altogether.
Earlier this year, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg claimed that corporations had been “neutered” and needed more “masculine energy.”
A similar trend is now emerging in the UK. Many organisations are rebranding DEI efforts to avoid political and media backlash. Right-wing media outlets such as the Sun routinely criticise so-called ‘woke’ business practices and applaud companies that appear to be “following Trump’s lead” in dismantling diversity initiatives.
Paul Sesay, founder and CEO of the National Diversity Awards, which is sponsored by companies including Amazon, Auto Trader, and HSBC, explains: “It’s rebranded to ‘wellbeing’, ‘belonging’ and ‘culture’. Even with roles, it’s no longer heads of DEI, it’s heads of culture, heads of people, heads of wellbeing.”
While the UK’s Equality Act and legal protections against discrimination offer some safeguard against a full-scale rollback, companies, particularly those with US headquarters, are already scaling back their commitments. In April, for instance, Barclays scrapped its gender and ethnicity targets for US staff. Previously, managers were expected to consider how promotions and hiring decisions supported the advancement of women and ethnic minorities, groups historically underrepresented in the banking sector.
With organisations succumbing and ‘following Trump’s lead,’ it’s not surprising the Good Law Project’s Stop Trump Exporting Bigotry and Hate petition is striking a chord. As Trump’s influence spills beyond US borders, threatening to undermine decades of progress on equality in the UK, campaigners say it’s a timely reminder that these rights are not guaranteed, and that now is the moment to push back.
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