The Great British PAC has fired a direct demand at the heart of government over a flagship intelligence internship that, we say, tells white working-class youngsters they are the wrong colour to serve their country. Our Young People’s Director, Sophie Corcoran, has put her name to a public letter to the Prime Minister and the heads of Britain’s spy agencies, calling for an immediate end to what she describes as “state-sanctioned racial discrimination” after such students were shut out of applying.
At the centre of the row sits the MI5, MI6 and GCHQ Summer Intelligence Internship. For the third year running, the scheme has limited applications to people from a “Black, Asian, mixed heritage or ethnic minority” background, alongside a set of socio-economic conditions.
White British students are explicitly shut out, no matter how deprived their circumstances, unless they fall within certain “White Other” categories such as Romany Gypsies or Travellers. Government departments justify the rules by leaning on the “positive action” provisions of the Equality Act 2010.
Corcoran has addressed her letter to Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Foreign Secretary David Lammy, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper and the Director of GCHQ, Anne Keast-Butler, calling for the practice to be scrapped and proper equality standards restored. Copies also went to the Equality and Human Rights Commission and to the relevant parliamentary committees.
“This isn’t diversity — it’s exclusion”
In a hard-hitting statement issued alongside the letter, Sophie Corcoran did not mince her words:
“This isn’t equality. This isn’t fairness. This is the British state telling white working-class kids that no matter how talented they are, they’re the wrong race to serve their country. That is not just wrong… it is dangerous.” “We support diversity. But if it means excluding an entire group of young people based on skin colour, we’ve lost the plot. Britain must do better than this.”
We are not stopping at strong words. The Great British PAC is now weighing up legal options, asking whether the way the Equality Act is being applied here goes further than the law actually allows.
“Is it time to challenge this in a court of law?” Corcoran added. “Maybe it is. The principle of equal opportunity underpins every part of a free society. If we allow these double standards to stand unchallenged, then what’s next?”
Rising political pressure
Pressure had already been building before our intervention. Conservative MP Nick Timothy disclosed that one of his constituents, a young white man, had been blocked from applying for the internship. He branded the policy “an unacceptable act of discrimination” and pointed to the Equality Act itself as the “problem.”
When Timothy raised a formal question in Parliament, Labour MP Stephen Doughty stood up for the scheme, insisting it complies with the Equality Act 2010 and is designed to “encourage those with protected characteristics.”
For critics, that defence misses the point: the boundary between encouraging some applicants and excluding others has, they argue, already been crossed, and the time has come for serious political and legal scrutiny.
What happens next?
The Great British PAC has formally asked every relevant minister and institution to respond, and is taking advice from legal experts on the prospect of a judicial review or a direct challenge under anti-discrimination law.
In the meantime, Corcoran and the Great British PAC are clear that they will keep up the fight — in Parliament, in the media, and in the courts if it comes to that.
Read Sophie’s letter in full:
