When I heard serious political voices talking about scrapping the Equality Act 2010 with no clear plan to replace it, I felt two emotions immediately.

Fear. And anger.

Fear – because people who rely on this law for basic protection are being placed in uncertainty. Anger – because decisions that will shape the safety and dignity of millions are being discussed by people who have never had to live inside the realities those decisions will affect.

The Equality Act, as it currently works in real life, is already failing many of the people it was designed to protect. That truth is important. But removing it completely, without building something stronger, clearer, and properly enforced, is not reform.

Reform; to make changes in (something, especially an institution or practice) in order to improve it.

It is reckless.

The Act exists to protect people from discrimination because of disability, race, sex, age, religion, sexuality, and other parts of identity. On paper, it sounds fair – a safety net meant to catch people before they fall.

In reality, too often it protects paperwork instead of people.

I have sat through equality training that has felt rushed and meaningless. I have seen organisations tick diversity boxes while missing the human reality in front of them. I have watched “reasonable adjustments” treated as if they are favours instead of legal rights. And I have lived the moment where policies said I should be protected, but when it mattered, the protection wasn’t there.

This is not rare – It is systemic.

Discrimination claims continue to rise, yet most people never see justice because the process is long, expensive, and emotionally draining. Disabled and neurodivergent people still face far higher levels of exclusion, unemployment, mental-health struggles, and misunderstanding. Autistic people, in particular, experience drastically higher rates of anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts.

So yes – something is definitely broken.

But ripping away the only legal framework that even recognises these protections, without a real alternative ready, does not fix the problem. It removes one of the few fragile barriers stopping things from getting worse – and they are getting worse! 

Imagine a bridge that engineers agree is unsafe. The answer is to rebuild it stronger. Not to blow it up while people are still on it and trying to cross.

That is what scrapping equality protection without a replacement sounds like, and this is why the current political conversation is so worrying.

Recent proposals linked to Reform UK and championed by Suella Braverman in her equalities and education role do not simply talk about improving the law. They talk about repealing it outright, removing equality structures altogether, and framing modern equality language as “tokenism” or “victimhood.”

But what has stayed with many people even more than the policy itself is the tone. Because when someone can laugh while speaking about repealing the very law so many vulnerable people rely on to survive, it signals something deeper than politics. It suggests distance from the lived reality. A lack of empathy. A lack of understanding of what those protections mean day to day.

For millions of disabled people, minority communities, and vulnerable families, the Equality Act is not abstract legislation. It is often the only line of defence when a workplace refuses adjustments, when a child is excluded at school, or when discrimination appears in housing or healthcare – and so much more.

Around one in five people in the UK is disabled, and many more belong to other protected groups covered by equality law. For them, this is not ideology. It is survival, dignity, and safety in ordinary life.

So fear is not dramatic. Fear is rational.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that removing the Equality Act without replacement will strip away everyday legal protections in work, education, public services, and housing. This isn’t a minor policy change. It is a shift in a country’s moral direction. And it forces a simple question:

Is this what a government that truly cares looks like?

What makes this even harder to accept is a pattern we keep seeing – life-changing decisions made by people with little or no lived experience of the lives affected. People who have never navigated school as a misunderstood neurodivergent child. Never depended on adjustments to stay employed. Never felt discrimination slowly erode confidence and mental health over the years. Yet they shape the rules. And when those rules fail, when harm increases, and vulnerable people fall further behind  – decision-makers move on! New role. New headline. Same damage left behind.

Why are lived experiences still treated as optional in conversations about equality? Why are the people who understand the consequences not centred in the solutions?

You would not ask someone who has never studied medicine to redesign surgery. You would not let someone who has never flown a plane rewrite aviation safety. Yet society repeatedly allows people with no direct lived experience of marginalisation to redesign the protections meant to safeguard it.

This is not about attacking individuals. It is about empathy, competence, and responsibility. Because equality law is not abstract politics. It shapes whether someone feels safe at school, secure at work, or valued enough to stay alive. And I genuinely believe this connects to the suicide crisis we rarely speak about honestly.

When children grow up misunderstood, excluded, or constantly made to feel like the problem, that damage does not disappear in adulthood. It manifests. It shapes identity, mental health, and hope. That is why equality must start in schools, not courtrooms. Protection must begin before trauma becomes permanent. The current Equality Act is not strong enough. But abandonment is not the answer.

Real reform would mean:

• Laws shaped alongside lived experience

• Real enforcement, not symbolic wording

• Meaningful education in workplaces and classrooms

• Early protection for neurodivergent and vulnerable children

• Accountability when systems fail

That would be courage. That would be care. That would save lives.

Scrapping protection without building something stronger is none of those things. It is abandonment dressed up as reform – and vulnerable people have been abandoned for far too long.

You can call it reform. You can call it common sense. You can even call it brave. But if the outcome leaves disabled people, minorities and vulnerable children more exposed than before, then it is not progress. It is retreat. Real leadership protects the most vulnerable first – it does not gamble with their safety. And until lived experience is centred in these decisions, many of us will continue to feel exactly what we feel now: afraid, unheard, and forced to fight for the right to exist safely in our own society.