It shows once more how spineless the Tory party has become in a race to the bottom with Reform UK.
Spineless Tory MP Chris Philp refused to say whether Reform MP Sarah Pochin’s disgraceful comments about Black and Asian people were racist, despite other politicians saying so.
Pochin made racist comments about Black and Asian people when appearing on a TalkTV phone-in on Saturday, in which she said that ‘it drives me mad when I see adverts full of black people, full of Asian people’.
Her comments caused widespread condemnation, with calls for Pochin to resign and Health Secretary Wes Streeting calling her comments racist.
He told Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, that Pochin had only said sorry ‘because she’s been caught and called out’ and added: “What she said was a disgrace, I think it was racist.
“What we have seen is a return of 1970s and 1980s-style racism I thought we had left in the history books.”
Asked by Kuenssberg whether he agreed with Streeting’s comments, Philp, the Tory MP for Croydon South, refused to call Pochin’s comments racist despite being given six opportunities to do so.
He instead said: “It’s not language that I would have used”, before going on to talk about ‘legitimate concerns about immigration’.
It shows once more how spineless the Tory party has become in a race to the bottom with Reform UK.
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
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