The Nottingham, Southport and Manchester Arena atrocities could have been stopped if workers were not afraid of being branded racist, Kemi Badenoch said today.The Tory leader used a speech to launch a searing condemnation of racism rules that have cost lives and been helping 'separatism and tribalism' to run riot in Britain.Mrs Badenoch insisted the UK is the least prejudiced country in the world, and bias against white people was just as unacceptable as against ethnic minorities.Pointing to the case of Henry Nowak, she said the murdered teenager's family wanted 'something good' to come from the outcry at his treatment by the police. A 'box ticking' approach towards equality had created 'perverse' and 'ludicrous' outcomes, she argued - saying she blamed police chiefs rather than frontline officers.The 2017 Manchester Arena bombing, the 2023 stabbings in Nottingham and the 2024 Southport murders were all examples of crimes in which equalities law had a factor, she claimed.The Opposition leader also dismissed the idea of limits on stop and search of black youths, insisting the tactic saved black people losing their lives to knife crime. But in a swipe at Nigel Farage, Mrs Badenoch said 'rage' was not a solution and abolishing equalities legislation wholesale would only leave everyone vulnerable to prejudice. She insisted she would fight 'identity politics' from both the Left and the Right.Kemi Badenoch launched a searing attack on racism rules that have been helping 'separatism and tribalism' to run riot in BritainThe Conservatives are pledging to scrap the 'public sector equality duty' which has been blamed for the spread of identity politics.In a speech in London, Mrs Badenoch said modern Britain is the 'least racist country on Earth'.But she said there had been an 'over-correction' precisely because people were so eager to do the right thing. The time has come to 'sweep away this rubbish and bring back common sense', she added.Mrs Badenoch warned that whatever the original intention of the duty 'in practice, it has become a minefield that exposes almost every public decision to legal challenge' and is leading to 'ludicrous outcomes'.The public sector equality duty requires public bodies to consider how they impact on people with protected characteristics like race and gender.Critics say it has been used to drive through divisive diversity initiatives.Mrs Badenoch said Henry Nowak's family 'could not have been clearer' that they do not want his murder to be used to divide.She added: 'What they want is for something good to come out of the outpouring of public shock … they want the police to become an institution that we can trust again.'And if we want to honour that wish, to honour Henry's memory, we need to ask the right question. I believe that question is why did police take an accusation of racism more seriously than the claim that Henry had been stabbed?'The Conservative leader said: 'If the security guards at the Manchester Arena weren't afraid of being accused of racial profiling, we wouldn't have seen a bomber walk into the venue unchecked.'If authorities weren't concerned that black people were over-represented in mental health events, three people would not have been murdered in Nottingham by a man who should have been detained under the Mental Health Act.'And if authorities hadn't chalked up Axel Rudakubana's violent behaviour to autism, if his head teacher hadn't been accused of racial stereotyping when she raised concerns about him bringing a knife to school, three little girls might still be here with us.'Mrs Badenoch said: 'All these crimes could have been stopped if people had intervened instead of having a fear of being called racist.'We would not have had so many girls abused by rape gangs if local authorities had not looked away because they were too scared to point out the obvious.'Public institutions have 'spent so long worrying about institutional racism that they have become institutionally incompetent', Mrs Badenoch added.The Tory leader highlighted the case of convicted terrorist Sahayb Abu who successfully sued the government last year after he and others were segregated in prison following a brutal attack on prison guards by Hashem Abedi, brother of the Manchester Arena suicide bomber.The case hinged in part on the fact that all those segregated were Muslim – a fact that Abu claimed breached the public sector equality duty.Mrs Badenoch described the ruling as 'madness', saying the duty is 'compromising security decisions like isolating dangerous criminals… in case terrorists call us racists'.However, she is adamant that the Equalities Act itself is not the problem.In a swipe at Reform, Mrs Badenoch said that the right stance when instances of failure emerged in the public sector was to support institutions to improve, not condemn them. 'Institutions are not perfect, but we want to fix a broken system, not smash it to pieces because we are angry. And don't get me wrong, we are angry, I am angry, but rage is not a strategy, rage is not a solution,' she said.Mrs Badenoch said her speech was not 'anti-police'.'I do think that most frontline police officers are good people,' she said. 'I think a lot of the issues have actually been with the senior police chiefs. They were the ones who I spoke to, and they were the ones who told me, ''Come on, you don't understand. We really are institutionally racist'', and then could not explain exactly how they were.'She added: 'This is not an anti-police speech. It's actually pro-police because I want to free them to be able to do their jobs without worrying about box ticking or compliance on issues that are not core to the function of saving lives and catching criminals.' Mrs Badenoch said some people would 'feel uncomfortable' about the levels of stop and search on black boys. 'But the truth is that, when black boys are searched, more knives are found. The incidence of knife carrying is higher,' she said.'So we can't leave people to carry knives because we think that we've we searched enough people for today because that means someone else's life gets lost.'And the people who tell me more than anyone that they want to stop and search are the mothers of young black boys who have been killed by their peers…'I'm not going to run away from an outcry and allow other people's children to be killed, just so I can have a quiet life. That is not fair.'Earlier, Mrs Badenoch told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: 'The Equality Act protects you as a white man as much as me as a black woman. It is those who are perverting that act into protecting groups that are causing the problem. There is no hierarchy of groups, there is no hierarchy of characteristics.'What is happening is that people assume that racism is something that only happens to minority groups. I want that to be gone. It is something that anyone can do to anybody else.'She added: 'We're a multi-racial country. Yes, white people are the majority but if you start creating different rules for different people you create separatism, you create tribalism, people split up.'Mrs Badenoch said the key was to 'treat everybody the same' and show 'common sense'.'Just because there are different outcomes between races for example doesn't mean that the cause is racism or discrimination,' she said.'Black people are in a minority in this country. But we should not have different rules for different groups.' Police bodycam footage showed innocent victim Henry Nowak, 18, being forced into handcuffs by officers after he was stabbed repeatedly by a knife-obsessed Sikh man Mrs Badenoch raised the example of a black police officers' association. She insisted people were free to associate but there was a problem with pressure groups trying to influence policy. 'We do not want identity groups doing this,' she said.'Would people be comfortable if there was the white police officers' association making policy for white people? I don't think so. We need to have the same rules for everybody.'Mrs Badenoch said her policies would aim to ensure 'people have one shared identity, one shared culture - and that is being British'.