‘Woke’ reading lists for civil servants to ‘confront their privilege’

A group called the Civil Service Race forum is circulating a reading list advising fellow employees to read such titles as ‘White Fragility: Why It's So Hard To Talk To White People About Racism to address their 'ignorance' of the topic.

Other publications on the reading list include titles which defend looting and argue for the abolition of prisons and the police service.

Critics of the group have expressed worries the group’s agenda could undermine an imperative need for impartiality within the Civil Service.

Whitehall sources had defended the list to the Mail on Sunday, on the grounds it aims to tackle race equality issues that affect employees.

Other titles on this list include: Building A Police-Free Future: Frequently Asked Questions; the US title In Defense Of Looting; and Are Prisons Obsolete?

The Government has been pushing back against promoting unchallenged ideas of white privilege, with Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi recently saying that schools should not teach it as fact.

Toby Young, general secretary of the Free Speech Union, told the Mail on Sunday: 'The Government has been quite good at curbing some of the most egregious woke gobbledegook in Whitehall, but in these quangos and arms-length bodies it's completely out of control.'

'If you push back in any way against the cult of equity, diversity and inclusion, you can expect to be disciplined or fired – and joking about it is the gravest sin of all in the eyes of the humourless enforcers of woke dogma.'