The BLM takeover of Whitehall

Why don’t ministers care about the politics of their civil servants?

Britain’s civil service is supposed to be politically impartial. Its professional Code binds civil servants to advise ministers and execute policies without letting their personal political opinions intrude. But however well senior civil servants follow this impartiality principle with regard to party politics, they have entirely abandoned it with regard to identity politics. This is a politically contested matter: indeed, we are frequently told it’s a matter leading ministers in the current government contest. But just like US federal administrators in Washington (according to City Journal), the mandarins in Whitehall have become partisans of “Critical Race Theory” and its radical tenets about “systemic racism”, “white privilege” and “white fragility”. They have adopted this left wing ideology, promoted it, and are now institutionalising it throughout the civil service, root and branch, using new internal organisations such as “Project Race” and the “Race Ambassadors Network”. Your taxes have paid for these views: it’s about time you saw in the press what you were getting for your money.

Outward signs of something amiss first came in June, as senior civil servants joined the stampede to openly endorse the Black Lives Matter movement. Take a moment to consider what was happening here: politically neutral senior civil servants were using the authority of their publicly funded offices to express their political opinions on a contentious, topical issue; they did so; they did so openly; and as far as we can tell, did so without contradiction or sanction from their responsible ministers. They further, when using work emails, expressed these “opinions” at people they line managed.