Offence, Discrimination and the Death of Neutrality: Lessons from the Lecour Case

Reading the NMC judgment against nurse Lisa Lecour, I find myself genuinely puzzled. How have we reached a point where a nurse can be struck off for saying she believes Pride is “a disgrace”? It’s not language I would choose, but the decision raises questions far beyond one person’s words. It touches on what kind of society we are becoming, and whether our public institutions can still tolerate difference.

The NMC found her comments to be “discriminatory and liable to cause offence.” Let’s look at both.

Discriminatory — how?

In law, discrimination means treating someone less favourably because of a protected characteristic. There is no suggestion that this nurse treated any patient differently or denied anyone care. Her supposed discrimination consisted entirely of expressing a moral opinion that others found unwelcome. That isn’t discrimination; it’s disagreement.

Her belief that marriage is between a man and a woman, or that Pride is not something to celebrate, may be unpopular, but it is recognised in law as a protected philosophical belief. To label it discriminatory simply because others are offended confuses moral dissent with moral injury.

Liable to cause offence

That much is true. But then so are most statements of moral conviction. Celebrate Pride and you will offend some Christians or Muslims. Celebrate Ramadan and you will offend some atheists. Criticise either and you will offend others. The real question is not whether something causes offence, but who decides which offence matters.

Increasingly, institutions decide that some forms of offence are legitimate and others are intolerable. Criticism of traditional religion or conservative ethics is treated as courageous. Criticism of Pride or discomfort with the institutional celebration of Ramadan is treated as hateful. Offence, it seems, only runs one way.

The asymmetry of tolerance

Across the public sector, “inclusion” has become an ideology. NHS Trusts, schools and universities promote certain moral narratives with enthusiasm — Pride, climate activism, anti-racism — and call this neutrality. It isn’t. These are expressions of belief about what is good and right. Yet when someone disagrees, even respectfully, it is labelled unsafe.

This is not inclusion. It is conformity. We have built a hierarchy of sensitivities in which the offence of some groups counts more than the offence of others. The result is an unspoken moral rule: you may express your beliefs, but only if they align with the institution’s preferred values.

Offence is not harm

John Stuart Mill warned about this long ago. In On Liberty he wrote that “the tyranny of the prevailing opinion” could be as dangerous as the tyranny of government. When offence becomes a reason to silence people, the thinnest skin sets the limits of speech. A free society cannot function on those terms.

The real question should be simple: did the words or actions cause genuine harm? Did a patient receive poorer care? Did a colleague face intimidation? If not, then offence, however deeply felt, is part of the cost of living together in a plural society.

The double standard in practice

We see this everywhere. An NHS Trust might allow staff to post pro-Palestinian messages, even when those posts stray into anti-Semitic tropes or make Jewish staff feel unsafe. Yet the same organisation will discipline a Christian for expressing traditional beliefs about sexuality. Both situations involve offence, but only one attracts punishment. That is not equality; it is selective sensitivity.

What’s at stake

The Lecour case is about more than one nurse. It is about the moral landscape of public life. A healthy democracy needs neutrality in its institutions. It needs space for people to hold and express different convictions without fear. We can disagree deeply, even sharply, without silencing one another.

When “inclusivity” means “agreement with the dominant view,” freedom of conscience collapses. Regulators then stop being guardians of public confidence and become arbiters of belief. That is not their role, nor should it ever be.

Offence is inevitable in a free and plural society. It cannot be eliminated, but it can be handled with grace and maturity. True equality is not about ensuring no one is ever offended. It is about ensuring everyone’s right to speak — and to disagree — is respected equally.