Hawksmoor v Tommy Robinson: the fine line of ethical decisions

At what point does upholding a company’s values cross into the dangerous waters of becoming the moral police? I think restaurant group Hawksmoor may just have found out. 

Last Thursday, the far-right anti-Islam activist known as Tommy Robinson, along with four of his group, was asked to leave a Hawksmoor steakhouse in central London. Video footage taken by one of the group and posted online shows a member of staff asking the party to leave because his colleagues felt uncomfortable serving them, and he had a duty of care to those employees.

Robinson accused Hawksmoor of discriminatory behaviour, saying the decision was motivated by disapproval of his political beliefs. He called for a boycott of the restaurant and asked his followers on X to leave reviews.

A subsequent statement from Will Beckett, co-founder and chief executive of Hawksmoor, reaffirmed that the guest was asked to leave “because guests and staff felt uncomfortable and had complained”. He also made pains to stress that the decision was not about politics or beliefs; that Hawksmoor is not a political organisation; and that it was not trying to engage in a public debate.

Yet there is no suggestion that Robinson or his party were being loud or offensive in any way while in the restaurant, stirring up a lot of debate over whether the restaurant was justified in asking the group to leave.

Critics of the decision have labelled it “reverse racism” and corporate wokery, accusing the restaurant of judging its customers on their political beliefs. Conversely, Hawksmoor’s supporters have defended its right to choose who it serves and applauded the defence of the uncomfortable staff.

Did Hawksmoor get it right?

On a practical level, the restaurant’s statement was measured and purposefully unprovocative, and it sensibly attempted to avert political debate. This is no surprise for an organisation that has historically communicated superbly.

But the damage had already been done. Once the decision had been made to ask Robinson to leave, it set the hares running. Filming from Tommy’s party. Social posts from the cohort. Calls for boycotts. All fuel that would inevitably lead to a wave of online abuse and hate.

By that point, Hawksmoor had already lost control of a situation that would pitch those with deeply contrasting views into a heated battle online and across all media. However measured the company response, they could have no control over escalating responses from supporters of both sides, continually adding fuel to the fire.

There is also a practical point to consider. While Hawksmoor was aiming to act in the interests of its employees, by deciding to ask Robinson to leave, it may just have inadvertently caused them much greater problems and concerns. Beckett’s statement suggested as much, alluding to “a huge amount of fallout…some of which is quite concerning”.

I’ve seen first-hand the trouble that far right and other extreme groups can cause for frontline staff in hotels and restaurants when they decide to target them, often filming them and seeking reactions from staff that are merely doing their jobs, and in some cases making online and physical threats.

A duty of care?

More fundamentally, the company’s response is predicated on a duty to care to staff and guests who felt uncomfortable in the presence of Robinson and his friends. 

It is only correct that restaurants have a duty of care to staff, and to customers – of which, until he was ejected, Robinson was one.

However, duty of care is easy to justify when a customer has been rude or offensive in some way. Much less so when they have not. Despite Hawksmoor taking pains to stress that it was not a politically motivated decision, it is difficult to avoid the logical conclusion that – in the absence of any offensive behaviour – the group is implicitly saying its staff should not feel compelled to serve customers they disapprove of, even if they are being perfectly well behaved.

Is disapproval solid ground for refusal?

We should always be hesitant to judge businesses in these scenarios and there are usually unseen circumstances and considerations. But it does raise the question of whether a restaurant, or indeed any company, should refuse to serve a customer because they disapprove of them, or fear for the reputational consequences of being associated with them.

I have been asked this question before by clients considering whether to refuse to accept the custom of high-profile individuals with highly controversial views, and have always advised extreme caution.

Of course, within the boundaries of the law, companies have the right to refuse to do business with someone; and it is only natural that they would feel uncomfortable about doing business with individuals whose values and views are entirely contradictory to their own. 

But doing so would open a huge can of worms, opening the company up to scrutiny of whether it is judging the ethics of all its customers, using which criteria, and inviting close future inspection of everyone it chooses to serve. 

How could a restaurant like Hawksmoor, that might serve over million customers a year, realistically expect that all those customers reflect the values of the business and its employees? And how could it possibly even attempt to assess this in a fair and consistent manner?

It can’t. And consequently, doing so on an ad-hoc basis creates risk. A business with the best intentions could easily put itself – and its staff - in the firing line and be made to look deeply hypocritical.

A predictable scenario

The answer, as so often in reputation management, is in careful planning. Issues with controversial customers are relatively predictable scenarios for consumer-facing businesses of any scale, so careful consideration and definition of a clearly thought-out policy explaining when, why and how they can refuse service to a customer should be part of the reputational risk management process for businesses of this nature.

It is hypothesis, but I suspect that in Hawksmoor’s case, it simply hadn’t considered this kind of scenario in any great depth, so the decision was hurried rather than based on carefully planned procedures. 

Businesses have the right to profess their values, and doing their best to stand by them is laudable. But where this transgresses into judgement of its customers’ views where they have no immediate relevance, it is fraught with danger.