The article starts off commenting on something that has been increasingly obvious in my line of work - when it comes to overt discrimination around race, sexual orientation and to an extent gender, people are very quick to slap it down again.  

Throwaway comments from minor celebs or Royals that could constitute racism have been known to ruin careers. Moir's recent article in the Daily Mail pointed at the 'gay lifestyle' of singer Stephen Gately as being the cause of his death.  Social networking was behind the flood of complaints on this to the Press Complaints Commission, ditto the force behind the uproar over Dannii Mingoue's comments regarding a contestant's sexuality on the X-factor that saw over 4000 complaints to Ofcom, the TV regulator.  Ordinary people will stand up against such blatant racism and homophobia and there is no doubt that huge progress has been made in challenging mainstream attitudes.  The bigots still exist of course, but they can't publicly get away with this now.

Orr makes a crucial point regarding how some aspects of equality have seen great progress and others haven't.  Using the recent statements from the Conservative Party on the subject of all woman shortlists as an example (they are considering introducing shortlists), Orr points out that the Conservative Party are actually promoting diversity, not equality.  There is a 'business case' for diversity and David Cameron's view of 'equality' is not the same as mine - he's actually confusing equality with diversity.

Increased inequality is rightly understood as a consequence of the enthusiastic adoption of neoliberal economic policies, by both of the governments of the mainstream parties. But less honestly acknowledged is the fact that diversity is entirely compatible with neoliberalism. The growth stimulated by the promotion of skilled female employment, the economic advantages of immigration, the consuming power of the "pink pound" - these are the aspects of "liberation" that have been most amorously embraced by the political mainstream, in part because they chime so fortuitously with neoliberal economic goals. (Notably, disabled people and older people, generally, have not benefited as much from the advance of identity politics as other "minority" groups, precisely because their need to be cared for does little to advance the neoliberal cause.)

The last point around disability and age is especially important.  Advances in equality for disabled and older people are actually very slow and discrimination and exclusion is rife.  Not purely because of 'care' needs since not all need care, but there is an assumption that both groups will have some cost associated with them, and as such the normalised position is that these groups are less valuable in society and don't have much potential to make a productive contribution.  I've not seen anyone setting out to properly tackle that.

The article then goes on to look at how the central arguments of the BNP - that white working class Britons have had a raw deal - are actually quite difficult to argue against.

Rebuttal indeed is pointless. The important thing to remember is that the black working class, the female working class, the gay working class, the disabled working class and the elderly working class, have had a similarly difficult time, under Labour and under the Conservatives. Certainly all of those other groups have been lavished with attention under Labour in the form of legislation that protects their minority rights in the name of diversity, in a way that the white working class has not. But the real reason why the BNP is able to make capital out of racist assertions is because immigrants are the only group that has been overtly utilised as a tool to promote economic inequality. That's the link.

That is, immigration has been used to keep unskilled wages low.  But rather than the tactic of using immigration to reduce costs being dissected and attacked, it is immigrants themselves who end up shouldering the blame and being scapegoated for all of society's ills.

Even if the idea that the white working class is a special-interest cultural group that needs to be "respected" were successfully promulgated, this would advance only "diversity", and legitimise extreme economic inequality as an inescapable fact of life such as skin-colour, gender or sexual orientation.

Once again Wilkinson and Pickett's 'The Spirit Level' gets a mention. It is hopeful that such arguments are breaking into the mainstream, with clear messages amongst the chaos of outrage at how much the super rich have been getting away with for so long.  

We need clarity of argument in a time like this that takes us beyond raw anger at an unfairness that is only easily tangible in the form of banker's bonuses but it actually more deep seated and complex than just this. Scapegoating only the bankers provides no long term solution when it is in fact the very principles of the omnipresent neoliberalism which have rotted the foundations of our whole society.