America is embracing meritocracy. Britain is being left behind

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While Britain labours on under a failed Left-wing consensus, a seismic political shift is unfolding in the United States. Following Donald Trump’s election victory and a Supreme Court case that effectively banned race-based “affirmative action” in university admissions, companies which spent years promoting progressive ideas are abandoning such ideological commitments.

Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta has dropped its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programmes, from internal training and hiring to external supplier diversity initiatives. Walmart, the United States’s largest private sector employer, is also winding down some of its own programmes, while McDonald’s is dropping a swathe of policies and targets.

This correction is long overdue. The only criteria for whether somebody gets a job, a promotion, a pay-rise or a contract should be their ability and performance in their role, and not the colour of their skin or how they identify. That this statement, even last year, could have been read as beyond the bounds of acceptable discourse at some of these companies shows just how far down the rabbit hole our collective corporate culture had gone.

What is unfolding in the United States is a revival of meritocracy, and the economic returns are likely to be positive. Going back to the position that the role of a company is to maximise shareholder profits, rather than attempt to address every social ill, could significantly raise the competitiveness of American firms.

Britain, too, is overdue for a correction. A renewed focus on enhancing access to opportunities would be a welcome change of emphasis. Rather than attempting to level incomes and employment after educational outcomes are already fixed, it would be far better for the Government to invest its time and effort into improving the opportunities available to disadvantaged groups across the country, including the white working class boys who are least likely to attend university.

Scrapping its ideological assault on educational excellence would be a good place to start. Binding academies to national pay scales and forcing them to follow the national curriculum is a retrograde step. The reforms introduced by the Conservatives saw Britain rocket up the PISA league tables. These successes should be embraced and built upon, not thrown lightly aside.

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