West Yorkshire Police’s Anti-White Hiring Policy Says the Quiet Bit Out Loud

PAUL BIRCH

A police whistleblower has finally revealed to the public what most of us who have worked in policing have suspected for a long time: that white officers (or potential officers) are being discriminated against in hiring policy, as senior managers continue to worship at the altar of diversity.

West Yorkshire Police (WYP) is currently preventing white candidates from applying as recruits to its constable entry programmes, the Telegraph reported this week. However, candidates from ‘under-represented’ groups can lodge their applications early and be safely shuffled along to the next stage of the recruitment process.

The discrimination is about as blatant as could be. Black and far east Asian candidates are provided with a ‘gold’ ranking, those of south-east Asian origin are ‘silver’, whereas white applicants are ‘bronze’ (interestingly, this includes candidates from under-represented Irish and eastern European backgrounds, but that doesn’t seem to matter so much).

I’ve written previously that it’s not the job of the police to get themselves involved in any form of social justice strategy, no matter how well intentioned. Their primary duties are to enforce laws impartially, maintain order and ensure public safety, devoid of external influences or political biases. Initiatives such as this risk alienating the police from the public at a time when confidence in the institution is already at an all-time low.

Yes, advocates of this racial tweaking will argue that it simply provides WYP with the opportunity to attract talent from a varied pool of applicants. And indeed, the force’s own website helpfully explains what so-called ‘positive action’ is and how it complies with the Equality Act 2010. Pressed on the issue this week, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper was also of the opinion that WYP has complied with the guidelines of His Majesty’s Inspectorate.

Etc, etc, etc. If the entire system is soaked in this stuff, of course this programme will comply with policy and law. How else can anti-white racism be explained away?

It is a common refrain in modern policing that we should have a force which ‘reflects the community it serves’. This is never questioned and is uttered as a universal truth. But why? Why does the ethnicity of an officer have to be same as that of a victim of crime? Surely that’s a whole lot less important than an officer’s ability to investigate an offence and engage with the victim in a professional, sensitive manner? Well, apparently not, according to West Yorkshire Police.

In my career I never met a member of the public who said the most important thing was that the officers they engage with had to look like them. In fact, it didn’t feature at all, and it’s patronising to suggest that it is uppermost in the minds of people from minority communities. On some occasions, it is positively advantageous for officers to be of a different background when engaging with members of the public. When I worked with some communities, many would prefer to engage with me rather than a colleague of a different sect of their religion. Again, assuming that any community other than the indigenous one is a homogenous entity smacks of denigration and ignorance. Clearly, they haven’t thought it through. But I guess it is never about doing what’s right; more signalling one’s virtue.

When the WYP whistleblower originally raised concerns internally with senior management, they were warned off by supervisors. A few years ago in the Met Police, I was made aware of an alleged difference in pass mark requirements for BAME and white candidates at one stage of the sergeant to inspector promotion process. A scandal that needed to be brought to wider attention, one might think. Instead, another colleague concerned about this unequal process was subsequently threatened and advised not to make waves. And make no mistake: similar things will be happening across the country for all police processes, whether that be recruitment, promotion or lateral progression. The organisation is saturated with woke dogma, dripping down from senior leaders who are desperate to appeal to the chattering classes.

Aside from the moral shortcomings of WYP’s diversity programme, it could also have significant security implications. Police forces nationwide shout from the rooftops about the proportion of BAME recruits being successfully enrolled. Numbers and percentages are declared like Soviet tractor production figures. But they’re much more reticent to publish the disciplinary and misconduct statistics which result from this lack of diligence in the vetting procedures.

In fact, rather than rethink these lax police hiring processes for ethnic minorities, the National Police Chiefs’ Council is now looking at the disproportionate negative outcomes for those officers from ‘under-represented’ communities who fall foul of the disciplinary process. If an inadequately vetted officer crosses a disciplinary or criminal line, it can still be put down to some vague institutional ‘ism’. This is despite a key finding of a 2019 NPCC report into BAME misconduct cases being that a “BAME officer’s misconduct investigation and the final outcome is significantly more likely to result in low level or no sanction outcomes than their white colleagues”. Far from there being institutional bias against ethnic minority officers, it’s actually easier to sack a white officer than one from a minority background.

Whichever way you go in this maze of politically correct confusion, you come across further dead ends. Not only are such practices unprofessional, they are potentially dangerous for public safety. It also means yet further negative publicity for the police. In a force disproportionately at fault for by the rape gangs scandal as West Yorkshire has been, do they really need it right now?

Paul Birch is a retired police officer who spent 24 years in the Metropolitan Police, 16 of which in counter-terrorism. You can watch his recent interview with the Sceptic here, and subscribe to his Substack here.

Stop Press: Police officers at one of Britain’s biggest forces – Thames Valley – are being taught they have “white privilege”. The force has introduced “equity training”, covering topics such as “white privilege”, “micro-aggressions” and the difference between being “non-racist versus anti-racist”. The Telegraph has more.

Stop Press 2: Bosses could be forced to justify anti-white hiring practices via a complaints system for people who miss out on jobs because of ‘positive action’ under plans proposed by Conservative peers as an amendment to Angela Rayner’s Employment Rights Bill.

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This article (West Yorkshire Police’s Anti-White Hiring Policy Says the Quiet Bit Out Loud) was created and published by Daily Sceptic and is republished here under “Fair Use” with attribution to the author Paul Birch

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