Senior civil servants should not be allowed to publicly express support for Black Lives Matter, Jacob Rees-Mogg has said.
The Tory MP, who was appointed Brexit minister earlier this month, said permanent secretaries should remain “completely apolitical” and not back the anti-racism movement.
He said they should instead be allowed to celebrate state-sanctioned events like the Queen’s jubilee and Remembrance Sunday.
Mr Rees-Mogg was asked in an interview about two permanent secretaries, Stephen Lovegrove and Jonathan Slater who had used the #blacklivesmatter hashtag.
Mr Slater, who was then the top former civil servant at the Department for Education, had said in a post on social media in 2020 there was much to be done in Whitehall to improve diversity and signed off with the hashtag.
Sir Stephen had meanwhile in 2020 said in an internal message to staff discussing diversity that “systemic racial inequality is not unique to America but also has deep roots within UK society, including Defence”.
The top Ministry of Defence civil servant had said this was “not a political position whatsoever” or “a gesture of support for any particular organisation” but “about the general principle of recognising that, at the moment, there is a problem that we, as a society, need to fix”.
But asked about the two civil servants’ comments he replied: “Permanent secretaries should be completely apolitical. They can remember state events, they can remember Armistice Day and Remembrance Sunday and the Queen’s jubilee.”
The comments are not the first time Mr Rees-Mogg has appeared hostile to Black Lives Matter or its aims.
He previously described plans for a commission to review potentially racist monuments announced by the mayor of London as among “loony left-wing wheezes”.
In 2020 Mr Rees-Mogg was asked in the Commons by Streatham MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy whether parliament could hold a “full debate” on Black Lives Matter and systemic racism.
He replied that such a debate would have to take place “outside of government time” because of “pressure on parliamentary time”.
