Suggesting someone is 'playing the race card' if they complain about how ... trends now

Suggesting someone is 'playing the race card' if they complain about how they have been treated at work is racist, an employment tribunal has ruled.

Implying that an ethnic minority colleague is raising bigotry without foundation is an act of of discrimination itself, a judgment concluded.

This is because it is 'inconceivable' a white person would face the same accusation, the tribunal said, describing the comment as 'irrefutably connected' with race.

The ruling came in the case of British Army musician Dwight Pile-Grey who successfully sued the Ministry of Defence for race discrimination, harassment and victimisation.

The Lance Sergeant, a black Rastafarian French Horn player in the Grenadier Guards, took legal action after he was denied entry to his barracks while wearing civilian clothes by a guard who did not believe at first he was a soldier.

When LSgt Pile-Grey complained that the Lance Corporal wouldn't have treated him that way if he had been white, he was accused of 'playing the race card' by both the guard and his superior officer who alleged he was turning the incident 'into a racial thing'.

These comments, the tribunal found, were discriminatory.

'It was the tribunal's finding that a hypothetical white comparator would not have been treated in the same manner,' the tribunal said.

The tribunal continued: 'It was clear from the wording used; 'going to turn this into a racial thing' and 'playing the race card' that [LSgt Pile-Grey] being black was at the forefront of [the officer's] mind.

'It seems inconceivable that he would have used such words to a white person and it therefore seemed likely that his entire approach to the interactions with [LSgt Pile-Grey] were influenced by race.

'The nature of the comment is irrefutably connected with race and as such, race must have been the reason for the treatment.'

LSgt Pile-Grey's victory in the tribunal was first reported last December. However, the full judgment in the case has only now been published.

The hearing in central London was told that he had joined the Army in 2005 and at the time of the incident in July 2021 was based at Wellington Barracks in the capital.