Luthori

[Ligbruderkrieg]

Government studying cutting LGBTQ+ inclusion funds and reducing inclusion policies at work for minorities in companies.
November 5646 (backdated)



Fort William - Austerity knows no bounds, does it? In its quest for a balanced budget and vowing to its electorate to cut "wasteful" government spending, the Cabinet's new target has become the inclusion programs funded by the Federal government, aiming to appropriately integrate sexual, racial and disabled minorities into the Luthorian workforce and aiming to avoid for these minorities to be the victims of discrimination due to their origin, sexual orientation or illness. Both the Health Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer have focused their respective teams into loosening heavy regulations on the matter for corporations and cutting down on government-run integration program.

The Prime Minister and the rest of the government seems to have been receptive to the austerity proposals and launched a process to begin cutting funds towards government-run program on inclusion, diversity and equality. The Government's first move was to effectively drastically cut the EDI government-funded programs towards entertainment and media, the Government saying that the entertainment industry was "far more able to create diversity programs for inclusion and equality without the intervention of the federal government", according to Culture Secretary McGill, the entertainment industry was one of the example in inclusion programs and the Federal government was only contributing minimally to the overall push from the industry, hence the "necessary" budget cuts to the programs in the entertainment industry. 

According to a spokesperson to the Actors' Guild of Luthori, while the entertainment industry continues to lead the way for diversity and inclusion, it was thanks to the Federal government's push for DEI programs and maintanence of them that the industry was able to become such an example, according to them, the Government cutting down on funding for DEI programs would have "devastating" consequences on the industry and argued that the Cabinet should "reconsider" the decision.

A sentiment shared within many of Luthori's progressive groups, the Radical Democrats attacked the Government's consideration of cutting down DEI programs as being "shameful" and argued that the Cabinet was "more happy to throw the lives of thousand of Luthorians into jeopardy than to address the elephant in the room - the Army", pointing out that the Imperial Army's budget was one of the biggest currently in effect, due to the initiative launched by the Government during the last term and by the National Labour Government during their previous term, leading to a steady ride in military expenditures that never really stopped since the outbreak of the Etxean War.

Nevertheless, with the Cabinet being unwilling to touch to the Army, the victims of the ultraliberal policy of the Government and its quest for a balanced budget is the hardworking Luthorian people and minorities, who are seeing their social protection laws being steadily reduced, who are going to see the employee protection laws being weakened and who are going to see the unilateral cuts into DEI programs, further weakening the poor integration and acceptance of LGBT+, minority and disabled communities into Luthori's society, as the Cabinet also announced reducing the funding for DEI programs within Luthori's public education system.

Already, the National Women's League and the Bubble organisations announced huge rallies in Parliament Square to protest the Government's decision. In universities, cutting down DEI programs has been met with resistance from students and professors alike with the National Scholar Youth League announcing protests to be held in numerous campus to protest the Government's decision.