Britain’s ruling Conservatives faced growing pressure on Wednesday, March 13 to return millions of pounds to a major donor accused of making racist comments about a high-profile Black lawmaker.
Businessman Frank Hester, 57, is alleged to have said that Diane Abbott – Britain’s longest-serving Black MP – made him “want to hate all Black women” and that she “should be shot.” The comments emerged as Sunak pledged to crack down on extremism, and with increasing concern about the safety of MPs, after two were murdered in recent years and others facing threats and intimidation.
Sunak – Britain’s first Hindu and Indian-origin prime minister – took more than 24 hours to condemn the remarks. But he told parliament on Wednesday: “They [the comments] were racist and he [Hester] has rightly apologized and that remorse should be accepted.” “There’s no place for racism in Britain and the government that I lead is living proof of that,” he added.
Hester has admitted making “rude” comments about Abbott, but claimed that they had “nothing to do with her gender nor color of skin.”
The Guardian newspaper, which broke the story late on Monday, reported that Hester made the comments during a meeting at his company’s headquarters in 2019. In a follow-up story on Tuesday night, it wrote that Hester had also said “no room for the Indians” during a crowded meeting, and suggested that they “climb on the roof, like on the roof of the train there.”
The main opposition Labour party, tipped to win a general election due this year, has called for the Tories to return £10 million ($12.8 million) donated by Hester, CEO of software company The Phoenix Partnership.
“If Rishi Sunak had anything about him, if he had any backbone, he would pay that money back today,” Labour MP Jonathan Ashworth told the Sky News television channel.
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Sunak is also coming under pressure from members of his own party over the controversy. “I would think about the company I kept and I would give that money back,” Andy Street, the Conservative Mayor of the West Midlands, told BBC radio.
Tory MP Nus Ghani tweeted that “zero tolerance on racism is just a slogan in today’s politics,” although she did not specifically mention the row in her post.
Sunak, though, has rejected calls to repay the money, pointing instead to the diversity in his government.
Abbott was Britain’s first Black female MP when she was elected to parliament in 1987. She sat as a Labour lawmaker until she was suspended in April last year for saying Jewish people were not subject to racism “all their lives.”
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