To me there's nothing different in principle with a Catholic adoption agency, or indeed Methodist adoption agency, saying the rules in our community are different and therefore the law shouldn't apply to us. Why not then say sharia can be applied to different parts of the country? It doesn't work.

He was cleared of contempt of Parliament but was told his behaviour was "inappropriate and ill-advised". " Griffin has since hit back at Phillips by declaring him a "black racist" in an interview given to Channel 4.

Phillips' tenure as EHRC chair (which at his request became a part-time position in 2009) has at times been controversial. He became head of the Commission for Racial Equality in 2003 and on its abolition in 2006 was appointed full-time chair of its successor the EHRC (initially called the Commission for Equality and Human Rights) which had a broader remit of combating discrimination and promoting equality across other grounds (age disability gender race religion and belief sexual orientation and gender reassignment). For the former English professional footballer see Trevor Phillips (footballer)
Trevor Phillips OBE (born 31 December 1953 London) is a former chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) and a former television executive and presenter.