Rupa Huq, the MP for Ealing Central and Acton, has been suspended from the Labour Party after she was accused of making a “racist” remark against the Tory Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng.
At a Labour conference fringe event on Monday Huq was heard saying in an audio published online that “you wouldn’t know he is black” as she was discussing Kwarteng’s school background.
In the audio published online Huq was heard saying, “Superficially he is a black man.
“He went to Eton, I think, he went to a very expensive prep school, all the way through, the top schools in the country.
“If you hear him on the Today programme, you wouldn’t know he is black.”
A letter was sent to the Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer by Tory party chairman Jake Berry who raised his “serious concerns” over the remarks.
Berry wrote, “I trust you will join me in unequivocally condemning these comments as nothing less than racist and that the Labour whip be withdrawn from Rupa Huq as a consequence.”
Berry said that the chair of the event for the British Future and Black Equity organisations,, Sunder Katwala, was then forced to challenge the “racist” remarks.
The Tory MP, Katwala said that the Kwarteng’s Conservative views “doesn’t make him not black … and I think the Labour Party has to be really careful.”
However speaking to the Guardian newspaper Huq said that she “stands by” her remarks about the Chancellor and she will not apologise.
She said, “Obviously I know you can be brown and be a Tory, I’m not that stupid” and then said there has been a “massive misunderstanding, wilfully.”
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