England: Man loses discrimination claim based on ‘English nationalist’ beliefs

The claimant, Steven Thomas, had been engaged through an employment agency to deliver consultancy services to Surrey & Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust for just under three months from 30 April 2018 to 26 July 2018.

On 24 July 2018, he was told by the agency that his assignment had been terminated because it had emerged that he had failed to disclose an unspent criminal conviction.

The claimant said he believed that the real rationale for his termination was his affiliation with the English Democrats political party, for which he had stood for election on a number of occasions between 2004 and 2016.

He claimed his dismissal was therefore due to his philosophical belief in what he described as “English nationalism”, which he alleged was discrimination contrary to the Equality Act 2010.

An employment tribunal dismissed his claim in 2021, holding that English nationalism is capable of constituting a philosophical belief under the 2010 Act, but also that the claimant “held anti-Islamic views as part of that philosophical belief”.

These anti-Islamic views meant his claim did not satisfy the requirement established by Grainger plc v Nicholson [2010] ICR 360 that the belief in question “must be worthy of respect in a democratic society, must not be incompatible with human dignity and not conflict with the fundamental rights of others”.

The claimant appealed on five grounds, including that Grainger was incompatible with more recent jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights, and that his case should have succeeded in light of the ruling in Forstater v CGD Europe [2022] ICR 1 concerning “gender-critical” beliefs.

In a 32-page ruling handed down last week, the employment appeal tribunal dismissed all grounds of appeal.

Mr Justice Sheldon said the claimant’s views “are of an English nationalism which believes that there is no place in British society for Muslims or Islam itself”, which he said “shares features with an ideology such as Nazism which did not see there being any place within German society for Jews”.

He said the claimant “is not prevented from holding his views, but he is outside of the right to complain that he has been discriminated against in relation to those beliefs in the circumstances covered by” the 2010 Act.

The claimant’s solicitor, Robin Tilbrook, who is also chairman of the English Democrats, has said his client intends to appeal further.