The Justice Secretary’s attempt to defend controversial police guidance on race has exposed a contradiction that goes to the heart of Britain’s increasingly confused approach to policing.
Faced with public outrage over guidance that appeared to encourage officers to treat ethnic-minority suspects differently, Lammy reached for an example involving Orthodox Jews and the Sabbath. Police, he suggested, sometimes have to consider cultural or religious circumstances rather than simply treating everyone the same.
At first glance, this may sound reasonable. A voluntary appointment can be arranged around religious observance. Courts and public bodies routinely make practical accommodations for religious practices, disabilities, childcare responsibilities and countless other legitimate considerations.
But that is precisely why Lammy’s argument fails.
The controversy surrounding police race guidance was never about common-sense accommodation. It was about whether race should influence how police exercise their powers and make operational decisions. Those are entirely different questions.
Nobody objects to a police officer arranging an interview at a convenient time. What concerns the public is the growing perception that justice is becoming conditional on identity.
The case of Henry Nowak has crystallised those concerns. An 18-year-old lay dying after being stabbed, yet officers reportedly prioritised investigating allegations that he had used racist language towards his attacker. Whether or not the guidance directly caused those actions, the optics were appalling. To many people, it appeared that race-conscious policing had overridden common sense, proportionality and basic humanity.
Rather than addressing those concerns directly, Lammy constructed a straw man. He implied that critics of race-based guidance are demanding a rigid system in which every citizen must be treated identically in every circumstance regardless of context.
That is not what critics are saying.
The principle of equality before the law has never required identical treatment in every practical detail. A wheelchair user may require different arrangements from an able-bodied person. A Jewish witness may need accommodation for the Sabbath. A Muslim officer may require flexibility during Ramadan. These are practical considerations designed to ensure equal access to justice.
What critics reject is the idea that race itself should influence the application of police powers, the assessment of evidence, or the treatment of suspects and victims.
By conflating religious accommodation with race-conscious policing, Lammy blurred a distinction that should be obvious to a Justice Secretary.
His defence is especially weak because it inadvertently highlights the very concern many voters have. Once authorities abandon the principle that individuals should be judged according to their actions rather than their group identity, there is no obvious limiting principle. Every decision becomes vulnerable to demands for special treatment based on ethnicity, religion, culture or historical grievance.
The result is not fairness but fragmentation.