As a Civil Servant, I Can Tell You Dissent From DEI Dogma is Not Allowed

Life as a civil servant in Whitehall means accepting the politically correct worldview without question and being thankful for it. Features of this include, as you might expect: ‘gender-neutral’ toilets; Pride flag lanyards; being expected to celebrate the Trans Day of Visibility; and pronouns listed in email signatures. As a gay man, it was baffling to me to be lectured constantly about the so-called ‘LGBT community’, a confected identity group into which I had been categorised against my will. But this was just the superficial stuff. Underneath lay the cultural superstructure of Whitehall: the application of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) – or as I think of it, Conformity, Inequality and Exclusion – to all aspects of work. The effect is to ‘inclusively’ ensure that only conformists are hired and promoted, and meanwhile to cancel any heretics who might not adhere to the general groupthink.

‘Bring Your Whole Self to Work’, we were often being told, as part of a general so-called ‘#BeKind’ ethos. Yet for anyone with at all dissident views, the reality was a self-censorship minefield, where bringing your whole self was frankly best avoided. Indeed, one had to be cautious at all times where one stepped.

Plenty of examples spring to mind. I recall one meeting of policy officials where a colleague, who I’ll call ‘John’, commented, mid-flow, “and I know everyone wants to get into curriculum decolonisation policy”. The words just rolled off his tongue, matter-of-factly. I had to bite mine, so as not to exclaim: “Really, you know that everyone does?” It was simply not possible to disagree with him. I knew that to question whether the dogma of “decolonisation” was indeed universally affirmed would have meant a black mark against my name.

One might think I am exaggerating, but I had in fact been previously suspended and investigated by the Civil Service for having expressed non-PC opinions (quel horreur), not even as a civil servant, but several years before I joined. I was the target of a witch hunt, in which an attempt was made to apply departmental policies retroactively against me, though thankfully it didn’t succeed. And I was far from alone in being persecuted for my beliefs. A colleague at the Office for National Statistics was dismissed for refusing to undergo diversity training in the wake of the death of George Floyd and subsequent Black Lives Matter riots in 2020. Just for that his career was ended. The experience left him psychologically broken and dependent on medication. Pour encourager les autres.

‘John’, meanwhile, has an easy time in SW1 because he holds the right woke views. Doors open easily for him. One day he was parliamentary assistant to a Labour MP, the next a senior civil servant supporting a ministerial private office, and now he works in policy for an international corporation. He had even attended one of the right universities – the LSE, founded by the Fabian Society. All it takes to go far in the corridors of power is the right opinions and the right credentials. I envy him no more than I might envy a snake oil salesman.

Ideological conformity is also ensured through the Civil Service Code, under which civil servants must act with “integrity”, “honesty”, “objectivity” and “impartiality”. Noble goals, one might think, but these standards apply to some civil servants rather more than to others. I recall being at a departmental away day at the Oval in 2020 where, in a speech to some 100 staff, the then director, a senior civil servant, openly mocked Conservative Parliamentarians over their Brexit deregulation plans, without fear or consequence. Meanwhile, part of the disciplinary case against me was the mere fact that I had attended a protest – before becoming a civil servant – against the Mayor of London and commented to a reporter on his failure to tackle knife crime. I was told this meant I could have violated the Civil Service Code on impartiality grounds, and even brought the department into disrepute.

To be a civil servant is to be constantly lectured about ‘diversity’, yet diversity applied in the Civil Service really means conformity of belief, and that only those who do conform can feel safe. This ensures that only policy officials with the right ideas for legislation, regulations and guidance are hired and promoted, and that everyone is on board with the same agenda. The result is a closed system and culture where no one can dissent and those civil servants with the right beliefs are in complete control. This is why the Whitehall Blob has so much power: UK legislation is conceived and developed by policy officials, and the vast majority of it takes the form of regulations (especially statutory instruments) which are signed into law by ministers without any parliamentary debate or scrutiny. Provided a department’s officials are all on board with the agenda, it is therefore very easy for them to manipulate ministers and in effect to decide the law.

Here’s how they do it. All policy proposals created by officials have to be submitted to ministers for approval. But civil servants know that ministers are always busy with constituency matters, their media image and countless other commitments. They don’t have time to read detailed policy, so they can be easily choreographed. There are numerous tricks. When a policy proposal is presented for approval to a minister only two options are presented. One option will be doing nothing or will be presented as something unpalatable, and the other option will be the one the civil servants recommend (the one they really want). In theory the minister can take whichever decision he or she wants to, but the minister is directed.

Next, ministers may be told that there is a pressing international treaty that must be followed and which takes precedence over domestic concerns (right-thinking civil servants always prioritise international esteem over the national interest). And often ministers are warned that a statement, termed a ‘commitment’, has been made in Parliament previously, meaning the incumbent minister is duty bound to the same course of action. He is not, of course – he can make up his own mind – but he rarely ends up doing so. This dynamic means that even supposed cabinet ‘collective responsibility’ is an illusion, since the policy detail of other government departments is developed by the civil servants working for them, rather than ministers. ‘Collective Whitehall groupthink’ would be more apt.

On the rare occasions that ministers do push back and exercise their own judgement, they will typically find themselves accused by civil servants of ‘bullying’ and be likewise bullied by a compliant media for making a fuss until they resign.

In short, Yes Minister‘s Sir Humphrey lives on in woke Whitehall today. He may not look the same as Nigel Hawthorne in the 1980s but his Machiavellian methods continue.