The National Trust has adopted guidelines that use “anti-white” rhetoric, Kemi Badenoch has suggested.
The trust is among several British institutions now using the phrase “Global Majority”, which Ms Badenoch, who is minister for women and equalities and a member of the cabinet, warned has “political implications”.
The phrase is a collective term for non-white people, who make up about 85 per cent of the world’s population and is sometimes used instead of “ethnic minority” or “Bame” – terms that some people believe to be outdated.
Ms Badenoch’s comments come after the National Trust faced a backlash following an announcement that it would be “training 100 new walk leaders from global majority communities” and that “people from the global majority are widely under-represented in the outdoors”.
Ms Badenoch said: “Many organisations adopt phrases like ‘global majority’ innocently without understanding the political implications. Often they feel compelled to use them by following guidance from bodies who claim to be anti-racist but are actually just anti-white.
“The government has issued guidance on how people should be referred to and that is by their specific ethnicity where it is relevant.
“At the end of the day, the National Trust is a national organisation, not a global one. They should apply the principle of equality under the law and focus on delivering for everybody, regardless of their background or whether they are a minority or majority.”
The term Global Majority has become increasingly common across state-funded bodies, such as the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), a non-departmental public body which is sponsored by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.
One of its subsidiaries offers “Global Majority Directed Studentships” whereby successful candidates receive tuition fee funding and an annual maintenance stipend of around £19,000), among other benefits.
Others institutions using the phrase include NHS South East (England), which hosted a “Global Majority Conference” last year where attendees were offered resources on “being not-racist and being anti-racist” and The Royal Opera House, which offers a mentorship scheme for young instrumentalists who “identify as being from the global majority background or from another underrepresented group”.
In October 2023 Arts Council England (ACE) announced “Devon’s first Global Majority theatre company”, Beyond Face, which receives £250,000 in funding each year.
Divisive and patronising
Inaya Folarin Iman, founder of the Equiano Project, an ideas forum that debates race, culture and politics, told The Telegraph: “Global majority is a nonsensical, divisive and patronising phrase. It lumps billions of the world together solely on the basis of them not being white. Most people, regardless of race, have no idea what it means and it is shameful that large organisations are using it seemingly solely at the behest of self-appointed, astroturfed EDI consultants. It is deeply anti-democratic.”
Paul Morland, an academic, demographer and author of the forthcoming book No One Left, said: “In a world full of a multitude of identities and ethnicities, the term ‘global majority’ is meaningless. Who are they? Non-Luxembourgeois? Non-Chinese? Non- Burundians? All are technically global majorities. It’s just a way of discriminating against whites without using the W word.”
Ben Habib, deputy leader of Reform, said: “Promoting the Global Majority/practising DEI is prejudiced. It is racist. It is dividing our society and it must stop.”
A National Trust spokesperson said: “The National Trust normally uses different language. However, sometimes, when sharing information about community groups, as we are on this occasion, we use the language that [we] feel is most appropriate.”
A spokesman for UKRI said: “[We] invest in a diverse research and innovation portfolio. This includes awarding block grants to Higher Education Institutions to support PhD studentships to train the next generation of researchers. The institutions make decisions about both the terminology they use and how they allocate the funding to specific studentship proposals, following an application process.”
The Royal Opera House declined to comment.
The NHS was approached for comment.