The Equality Act 2010 consolidated and strengthened decades of equality legislation. It was shaped significantly by campaigners and communities who experienced racial discrimination, including many from Caribbean heritage. The Act represents a genuine political and legal achievement in the fight for equal treatment.
The irony of the reparations proposal is that implementing it would require either violating the Act or creating an exception to it. Either way, the legal framework built to protect people from racial discrimination would have to be undermined to deliver a payment justified in the name of racial justice. This contradiction is never acknowledged by reparations advocates.
