English nationalism is not a ‘philosophical belief’, an employment tribunal has ruled in a case involving an employee who was dismissed for voicing racist views on social media.
Mr Cave brought a belief discrimination claim against the Open University after he was dismissed from his acting project co-ordinator role in July 2020, following complaints about racist remarks he had made on Twitter and YouTube.
One tweet in reply to Star Wars actor John Boyega said: “Why does a person who speaks and acts like a foreigner expect to be treated the same as an Englishman in England? The entitlement of these people….”
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Cave also commented on a post by lawyer Dr Shola Mos-Shogbamimu, which celebrated her African heritage, with: “F**k off and go home!”.
He had used an alias on social media and some of the content had been deleted by the time he was spoken to by the Open University.
There was no evidence that Cave had discussed these beliefs at work, but the Open University received both internal and external complaints about his social media posts.
Asked about his beliefs, Cave told the employment tribunal sitting in Cambridge that he described himself as an “English nationalist” and believed that mass immigration has been “destructive and unhealthy”.
He believed that the government should discriminate in favour of people he deemed “British”, for example in the provision of social housing. It was his view that those who are black or Jewish are not part of the English nation.
Asked to explain his tweet to Boyega in the context of his belief, Cave said he didn’t consider Boyega to be British because he is of African descent, had a Nigerian flag on his Twitter account and identifies with his Nigerian ancestry. He also took exception to Boyega’s use of the word “mandem” and stated, “English people don’t use that language”.
The Open University’s lawyer argued that the claimant’s belief in denying public services because of race amounted to “being destructive of human dignity”. Cave’s belief could be said to be “akin to Nazism as it has, at its core, a belief in ethnocentric nationalism”, the lawyer said.
Employment judge Isabel Manley dismissed Cave’s discrimination claim. She said his belief in English nationalism could not be categorised as a philosophical belief worthy of protection under the Equality Act 2010 as it was “not worthy of respect in a democratic society for several reasons” and “incompatible with human dignity and conflicts with the fundamental rights of others”.
The judgment says: “The claimant’s unequivocal belief that those who are Black or Jewish are not part of the English nation, for example, patently seriously discriminates against people within those groups. It is, at the very least, ethnocentric, as described by the respondent’s representative and could also arguably be described as racist and/or anti-semitic.
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“This is not just a belief that is shocking, offensive or disturbing to others, though it may well be all those things. It is a belief that, in at least some respects, is akin to Nazism.”
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