New sentencing guidelines bastardise the principle of equality before the law, telling judges to make the ethnic and religious background of offenders a greater factor in deciding whether to jail them.
The Sentencing Council rules say that courts in England and Wales should “normally consider” ordering a pre-sentence report—presenting information that could mitigate against prison time—on an offender if they come from “an ethnic minority, cultural minority, and/or faith minority community” or “are transgender.”
This would make white, Christian, non-trans Britons more likely to be placed behind bars after committing an offence than their minority criminal peers, who could be given lesser community punishments or suspended sentences instead.
Reform MP Rupert Lowe framed this as the latest example of “anti-white racism,” which he said is “absolutely thriving in 2025.”
Young white men must be looking at the country and thinking—what have we done wrong? What did we do to deserve this? The answer lads, is NOTHING.
Young white men must be looking at the country and thinking – what have we done wrong? What did we do to deserve this? The answer lads, is NOTHING.
— Rupert Lowe MP (@RupertLowe10) March 5, 2025
You're told that you're racist for feeling patriotic, far right for going to the gym, bigoted for having a joke, chauvinistic for…
Reports on the guidelines have also prompted renewed criticism of two-tier justice under Keir Starmer, although Labour is doing its best to distance itself from the change.
Justice secretary Shabana Mahmood said she is writing to the Sentencing Council—an independent quango—to change the guidance, but she cannot make it do so. Tory leader Kemi Badenoch added that if the government minister needs to change the law so that she can force such a change, “the Conservatives will back her.”
In a stinging rebuke of this political farce, author and journalist Joanna Williams stressed that neither party can escape the blame for the environment in which such guidance is able to emerge in the first place. Williams wrote that however much they pay “lip-service to the importance of equality before the law now,”
Both Labour and Conservative governments have worked with a legal establishment that is determined to implement the exact opposite.
Unless it is stopped, the Sentencing Council guidance, unveiled this week, will come into force—appropriately enough—on April 1st. For supporters of equality before the law, this is no laughing matter.
