AS many as 40 Tory MPs plan to reject unconscious bias training designed to combat racism in Parliament, blasting Commons officials for “pandering to the woke agenda”.
The sessions, which target people’s underlying prejudices, have been used by parliamentary staff since 2016 and are now being trialled for MPs.
But right-wing Tories in the Brexiteer European Research Group and so-called Common Sense Group have branded the training useless, complaining it will promote “nonsense language” associated with the Black Lives Matter movement.
“I would really rather gouge my eyes out with a blunt stick than sit through that Marxist, snake oil crap,” one Conservative MP told the Times.
Ipswich representative Tom Hunt added: “Whoever is pushing this forward now is trying to pander to the woke agenda — I won’t be. I don’t think the vast majority of my constituents would want me to waste two hours on a pointless unconscious bias session that will have no effectiveness whatsoever.”
The unconscious bias sessions were launched after concerns about discrimination prompted the creation of a parliamentary taskforce to reduce inequality, chaired by the clerk of House, John Benger.
A Commons spokesman said the voluntary training was the result of requests from MPs, adding that officials had not yet decided whether the sessions should be extended beyond the current trial programme.
Tory MPs are nonetheless up in arms.
Rother Valley Alexander Stafford told the Times: “It would be far better to spend time helping constituents than be lectured by someone who’s being paid a lot of money to tell you you’re an awful human being.”
Mansfield representative Ben Bradley, who has previously denied the existence of white male privilege, went further. He claimed the programme would promote “the kind of nonsense language that we keep hearing around things like the Black Lives Matter agenda”.
Commenting on the Times report, Labour’s Diane Abbott wrote: “Nothing says bias like someone who absolutely refuses to discuss the possibility that they might be unconscious bias.”
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