It’s the new social public works: building bridges for one-way streets.

English law developed two distinct streams a few centuries after the Norman conquest of 1066. The first developed into what would become the ‘common law‘, the ‘King’s Law‘; the second developed later into the ‘equity law‘, or the ‘Church Law‘.

The common law was the ‘black letter law‘ – the defendant in a case did, or did not, do a certain thing, a harm was caused to the plaintiff, so the plaintiff can demand an action be ordered against the defendant that remedies his position, such that he is placed in the position that he should have been in before the harm was done. Any undue stress that is placed on the defendant is not a factor in the action.

The equity law was the ‘ethical law‘ – both parties in a case should be seen to have had justice applied in an equitable manner, notwithstanding contractual obligations or other arrangements between the defendant and plaintiff. Therefore, even if the defendant was seen to have caused a harm to the plaintiff, any action against the defendant should not place undue stress on him.

In essence, the common law was looking at the what of a case; the equity law at the who. The baker whose bread was stolen certainly has a black-letter cause of harm, the remedy being the return of the bread, or its financial equivalent. But who stole the bread – someone being spiteful, someone who is a professional thief, or someone who is trying to feed his starving children? The common law wants the baker to be put back to the position he was in before his bread was stolen; the equity law understands that a harm has been caused to the baker, but any action against the defendant should take into account the who.

Fast forward to modern, progressive New New Britain, where the ancient Chancellory Court Of Equity is taking on a whole new lease of life. Judges there are being ‘asked’ to consider skin tone and ethnic backgrounds when determining any actions¹. Instead of just the bread thief’s personal circumstances being taken into account when assessing any action against him in order to remedy the harm done to the baker, the thief’s skin tone and ethnic background must now be considered also. In other words, two bread thieves may have similar personal circumstances which led to them stealing bread, but the defendant who has a darker skin tone, or an ‘ethnic‘ background, should be given a more lenient sentence than the other.

Racism and bigotry (seemingly against ‘white’ people and ‘ethnic British’ citizens) is now considered an important and requisite tool for judges in deciding cases in Britain, starting on June 1st. As depressing and startling as this is, it is the social and civil society in Britain that will continue to suffer and erode.

When state institutions do stupid things like this, they ‘message‘ – they send information to citizens about how they should and can behave. In Rotherham (basically every city), Muslim-family rape-gangs were allowed to abuse young, white girls at their whim: state institutions such as welfare agencies, local government, the police and healthcare workers, deliberately ignored this abuse for fear of being called ‘racist’. This ignorance sent a message to the Muslim males in Rotherham: you can rape and abuse white girls as you like; no one is going to stop you. And so it continued, and continued on an industrial scale.

In Rotherham, the Muslim-family rape-gangs had received the ‘message’ loud and clear. And what of this new, progressive diktat for British judges? Are we supposed to assume that black and ethnic minority criminals ne’er-do-wells will be less inclined to engage in criminal activity; or will this increase, on an industrial scale, black and ethnic minority crime? And what of the British civil society, such as it is in 2017? Will this make it stronger? More cohesive? Will it build bridges? Will it encourage dialogue and community outreach? And what ‘message’ will this send to white people and ethnic-British when they find themselves ensnared into the judicial system? Their same crimes, even when personal circumstances are similar, might receive substantially more punitive sentences. How’s that for community engagement?

¹ Daily Mail, Steve Doughty; Youths from ethnic minorities could get softer sentences after judges are told to consider ‘discrimination’ they may have suffered