It has emerged that Royal Air Force officers exchanged emails in which it was advised that the recruitment of white males be avoided in order to focus recruitment on women and ethnic minorities.
In leaked emails it was revealed that RAF officials had discussed the racial and sex profiles of selection boards candidates, even bemoaning the presence of “useless white male pilots”.
Last year an inquiry was launched after Group Captain Elizabeth ‘Lizzy’ Nicholl reportedly resigned in protest over the claims that ethnic minorities and women were being shown preference by the RAF in order to comply with ‘impossible’ diversity targets.
It was claimed that the head of the RAF was ‘prepared to break operational requirements’ and ‘undermine the fighting strength’ of the force in efforts to reach diversity quotas.
Selection boards are how the RAF filters new recruits with the appearance that race and gender quotas carry significant weight in the selection process.
An email sent from a Flight Lieutenant on the 19-1-2021 said, “I would be grateful if you would provide me with a breakdown of the candidates awaiting boarding by Br [branch] and BAME [Black, Asian minority ethnic]/ Female.
“I noticed that the boards have recently been predominantly white male heavy. If we don’t have enough BAME and female to boards then we need to make the decision to pause boarding and seek more BAME and female from the RF.”
“I don’t really need to see loads of useless white male pilots,” he said.
Another email from the 20-1-2021 revealed that two boards had been cancelled due to a lack of BAME/female candidates.
“We have cancelled 2x boards next week due to them having no female/BAME or priority Br on them – infact one board inca white male bursar pilot travelling from Northern Ireland!,” it said.
The emails also show a discussion in which it was stated that 45% to 50% of BAME/female candidates are selected and that “demand signal needs to go back to RF to focus now on sending all the BAME and female they have,”
It was reported that at least one white man made an official complaint that he had been unfairly discriminated against and had missed out on a bonus payment of £5,000.
The man claimed that because of his race he’d been held back from joining a cyber training program.
This led to the emergence of 30 other similar cases with the RAF reportedly planning to pay each complainant £5,000.
Air Chief Marshal Sir Mike Wigston denied the claims at an official hearing last February and told Sky News that “no discrimination against any group” had taken place.
However Defence Committee head MP Tobias Elwood said that ‘on the face of it’ it seemed that the committee had “been misled”, and promised to call the Air Chief Marshal back before the committee to be questioned.