Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick is under fire after allegedly complaining about not seeing ‘another white face’ when visiting an area of Birmingham
Robert Jenrick is under fire after allegedly complaining about not seeing “another white face” when visiting an area of Birmingham.
The Shadow Justice Secretary reportedly said it was not the kind of country he wanted to live in. After mentioning the lack of white people, he then went on to say it was not about “the colour of your skin or your faith” and he wanted people to live alongside each other.
But his comments, reported by the Guardian, have come under criticism from the area’s MP for suggesting he was assessing the number of white people he saw during a 90-minute period to decide whether Handsworth was “properly integrated”.
Mr Jenrick’s comments were reportedly recorded during a dinner at the Aldridge-Brownhills Conservative Association dinner in March.
According to the Guardian, he told the dinner: “I went to Handsworth in Birmingham the other day to do a video on litter and it was absolutely appalling. It’s as close as I’ve come to a slum in this country. But the other thing I noticed there was that it was one of the worst integrated places I’ve ever been to. In fact, in the hour and a half I was filming news there I didn’t see another white face.
“That’s not the kind of country I want to live in. I want to live in a country where people are properly integrated. It’s not about the colour of your skin or your faith, of course it isn’t. But I want people to be living alongside each other, not parallel lives. That’s not the right way we want to live as a country.”
The area’s independent MP Ayoub Khan told the newspaper: “The claims made by the shadow justice secretary are not only wildly false but also incredibly irresponsible. He has misrepresented a storied and diverse community, awkwardly distorting the product of an all-out bin strike to fit his culture-warrior narrative filled with far-right cliches.
“What could be seen on the streets that day … was not the result of some failure of multiculturalism. It is the result of 14 years of sustained austerity measures under the Tory governments that he so loyally served, combined with continued neglect and mismanagement by the Labour-run council.”
And Khalid Mahmood, the ex-Labour MP for Birmingham Perry Barr, which covers Handsworth, said: “I was immensely privileged for 23 years to serve that area and they are fantastic people of all colours, creeds, religions and no religion at all in Perry Barr and Handsworth.
“I think it’s very, very negative. These people have struggled day in day out to make ends meet under the Conservative government. We’ve got a huge amount of HMOs [houses of multiple occupancy] in the area and the bin strike by the local authority hasn’t helped either.
“He’s playing on that. For the comment that he’s not seen a white face in Handsworth, that’s just ridiculous. There are all sorts of people, white, black, other sorts of people of all heritages and cultures.”
Anna Turley MP, Chair of the Labour Party, said: “This weekend Kemi Badenoch said she stood against a politics that ‘reduces people to categories and then pits them against each other’.
“Robert Jenrick in his leaked comments reduces people to the colour of their skin and judges his own level of comfort by whether there are other white faces around. His comments clearly cross a red line that his leader has rightly laid down.
“People of colour should not have to justify their Englishness, or their Britishness, or their presence in this country, to Robert Jenrick or anyone else. Robert Jenrick needs to urgently explain himself and why these comments are in any way compatible with what his party leader said yesterday.”
Georgie Laming, the director of campaigns at Hope Not Hate, said: “If Robert Jenrick truly wants to see people live alongside each other, he shouldn’t make such inflammatory remarks. Talking down communities plays into the hands of far right.”
Mr Jenrick’s team declined to comment.
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