So Two Tier Sentencing Bad But Two Tier Bail Good?—Broken Britain

The Justice Secretary's words don't line up with her actions.

While the country reeled from the Sentencing Council’s attempt to introduce race-based sentencing leniency, something arguably more audacious had already been implemented—and almost no one noticed.

In January, Labour Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood and her department quietly published new probation service rules that set the stage for two-tier bail procedure.

Under this framework, judges are instructed to “prioritise” cases involving ethnic minorities, women, and trans-identified suspects—on the assumption they face a “disproportionately higher risk” of being remanded in custody.

Barely a ripple came from the press.

It stands in complete contrast to the public backlash that followed the Sentencing Council’s now-abandoned proposal to recommend pre-sentence reports (PSRs) based on ethnicity and/or faith.

The new probation guidance goes further than just identifying potential vulnerabilities.

It explicitly calls for judges to consider factors such as “important historical events which may have had a greater impact on those from specific groups and cultures.”

That presumably includes events like the slave trade, past wars, and colonialism—historical moments that can apparently cause “trauma” for the descendants of those who experienced them.

The guidance—titled Probation Court Services Policy Framework—also instructs officers to consider “diversity factors” when drafting sentencing reports, ensuring that “no references to diversity issues” are included if they risk stereotyping certain groups.

The Ministry of Justice, Mahmood’s department, offered an example: “inappropriately linking people of a particular racial background to gang involvement,” making “irrelevant reference to religion or belief,” or citing factors like care-leaving status or educational difficulties “without providing relevant context and evidence.”

Make no mistake: these are the factors judges and magistrates are being urged to consider when deciding whether to grant bail or keep someone in detention—after arrest, but before a trial has taken place.

The kicker? These rules have been in force since January 6th. Meaning that, white male Brits have been subject to bail guidelines that “positively” discriminate against them since the onset of the year.

What makes this even more perplexing is that Mahmood herself condemned the Sentencing Council’s PSR guidance in a formal letter on March 20th.

In that letter, addressed to Council Chair Lord Justice William Davis, she objected to the guidance on two grounds: that the Council had acted without consulting the new government, and that the policy breached the principle of equal treatment before the law.

But buried within her objection was something more revealing.

Mahmood didn’t just argue against the content of the guidance—she objected to who had published it. Sentencing policy, she wrote, should be the responsibility of those “accountable to the public... at the ballot box.”

In other words: the policy was partly wrong because it didn’t come from her or the government.

So because this bail “policy framework” came from her, she’s fine with it?

You really couldn’t make this stuff up…

---

A short comment…

When Donald Trump flattened Joe Biden in the 2024 election, many on this side of the Atlantic shrugged.

But for some, it was a wake-up call—a reminder that it often takes prolonged pain, disillusionment, and economic erosion for enough of the population to finally push back.

In Britain, we now seem to living through our own long, bitter version of that pain. For America, it was the last Biden administration.

Under Starmer, Mahmood, and co. we are experiencing a palpable decline in fairness and principle—replaced by lifeless ideology that reward things like identity over character.

And if the electorate is paying attention, 2029 may yet deliver its own shock to Whitehall, like 2024 did to Washington.

---

---

• Do you think if things stay the way they are our best days are ahead of us?

• Are you going to sit down and watch as our media/government officials push for yet more invasive, authoritarian, censorious policy?

• If you want to do something today to help change that, you can opt for a paid subscription and help citizen journalists like me attempting to stop it…

---