It has been reported that an Employment Tribunal has ruled that Lloyds Banking Group did not discriminate on grounds of religion or belief when applying a disciplinary sanction against two members of staff who had posted comments on its internal communications platform. It seems that their posts accused the Israeli government of, amongst other things, “genocide, ethnic cleansing, illegal occupation, apartheid and colonisation”. Whilst not discriminatory, Lloyds was apparently criticised for being “heavy-handed” in its response which had been to give them a final written warning and reporting them to the FCA.

It is a reminder for employers that, for disciplinary action to be justified for personal comments on social media, particularly where such comments involve the expression of protected philosophical or religious beliefs, they must carefully balance their interests against employees’ fundamental rights to freedom of expression and belief. 

The leading case on employer disciplinary actions involving employees' expression of philosophical or religious beliefs, particularly in the context of social media posts is the February 2025 Court of Appeal decision in Higgs v Farmor’s School which involved a detailed discussion of the legal principles governing when disciplinary action in relation to such expressions may constitute unlawful discrimination under the Equality Act 2010, and how those principles must be aligned with the requirements of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), especially Article 9 (freedom of thought, conscience and religion) and Article 10 (freedom of expression). 

 In relation to this balance, Underhill LJ said: 

"An employer does not have carte blanche to interfere with an employee's right to express their beliefs simply because third parties find those beliefs offensive and think the worse of it for employing them. Nor, however, does the employee have carte blanche about what they can say in public or how, or in what circumstances, they say it.” 

Underhill explained that an employer might impose limitations on their employees’ rights to manifest their beliefs and freedom of expression but that the extent to which that will be justified will depend on the circumstances, going on to say: 

“I would emphasise that the threshold of offensiveness should be high: protection should not be lost merely because the employee has expressed themselves intemperately”. 

In the Higgs case, the dismissal was deemed disproportionate. There was no evidence of actual reputational harm to the school, and the posts were made on the employee’s personal social media account, with no reference to the school.