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Trevor Phillips seemingly suggests football hooligans deserve equal rights

On his Sky News Sunday show, a smirking Trevor Phillips has suggested that barring football hooligans may violate equality laws:


This is yet another example of how the wilfully idiotic British media purposefully muddies the water.

Protected characteristics, according to Trevor Phillips

In the video above, Trevor Phillips says:

Has anybody in government actually considered whether this is legal? Because looking back to a previous existence of mine, I suspect that banning Israeli fans or the fans of an Israeli club might be unlawful under the Equality Act because it applies a condition to a particular group of people.

Phillips is talking about when he worked at the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC). He’s probably avoiding referencing the EHRC directly because it’s one of the most widely discredited organisations in the UK.

Getting into what he’s saying, Phillips is suggesting that Maccabi Tel Aviv fans would be protected under the Equality Act because they’re a “particular group of people”. The Equality Act protects ‘groups’ when members share ‘protected characteristics’, which include:

  • Age.
  • Gender reassignment.
  • Being married or in a civil partnership.
  • Being pregnant or on maternity leave.
  • Disability.
  • Race including colour, nationality, ethnic or national origin.
  • Religion or belief.
  • Sex.
  • Sexual orientation.

You’ll notice that ‘football team support’ isn’t on this list.

You’re also probably aware that the authorities didn’t bar Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters for being fans; they barred them because they have a strong contingent of hooligans with a record of tearing up European cities.

By now, if you didn’t already know, you’ve probably learned that it’s far from abnormal to bar fans with a history of hooliganism (it’s not even the only time it happened this week).


What Phillips is insinuating is that it could have violated the Equality Act because Maccabi Tel Aviv fans are Jewish. He’s not saying that clearly, because he knows that’s not why we barred them. He also knows that not every Maccabi Tel Aviv fan is Jewish:

The propaganda machine

Trevor Phillips was smirking when he asked this too:


He may have good reason to smirk. The antisemitism smear is of course being used as a vector to attack Muslims and Muslim communities, and Phillips has some noteworthy opinions on that topic:

It’s obviously all a game to these people, and you can tell that by how seriously they take it.

Weaponised stupidity from Trevor Phillips

If Trevor Phillips was correct that you couldn’t block individuals from doing things because they’re part of a ‘group’, we wouldn’t be able to stop sex offenders from working in schools. Obviously what he’s saying doesn’t hold up if you think about if for two seconds, but then again, two seconds is about as long as most people can manage when watching these shows.

Featured image via Sky News 

By Willem Moore

This post was originally published on Canary.