Parker says Jenrick’s comments were racist because he focused on colour to make negative point about Handsworth
In his interview on BBC Radio WM, Richard Parker, the Labour mayor of the West Midlands, was asked if he thought Robert Jenrick’s comments about Handsworth were racist. Parker replied:
I do. Because he’s set out intentionally to draw on a particular issue – people’s colour – to identify the point he wanted to make.
No other politician that I know in the West Midlands of a mainstream party would seek to do that explicitly and with the intent that he did.
The issue for me is that rather than reflect on the positive aspects of that community … he wanted to draw on a particular issue of ethnicity and colour. I think that is simply wrong.
It shows a lack of respect and understanding for those communities. And I doubt whether or not if he went to a largely white community anywhere in the West Midlands he’d be making a comment similar to what he made about Handsworth.
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Jenrick says he is proud of the way the Conservatives have stood up for the Jewish community in Manchester.
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Jenrick goes on to joke about David Lammy, the new justice secretary, which he does quite easily just by reminding people of some of Lammy’s Mastermind answers in an episode 22 years ago.
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Jenrick starts speech with joke about how little time Liz Truss lasted as PM
Robert Jenrick is speaking to the conference now.
He is speaking as shadow justice secretary, but he is also widely seen as a probable party leader before the next election given the widespread assumption that Kemi Badenoch will be replaced.
Jenrick says he wants to talk about four famous blondes.
He starts by mentioning – Michael Fabricant – probably not the person they were expecting. Fabricant entered the Big Brother House, but only lasted four days.
Then there was Emily Hewertson – but she only lasted four hours.
Jenrick says he has heard a third blonde is negotiating with Big Brother. But talks have broken down because Liz Truss wants to be paid by the minute, he says.
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A London assembly member has heckled a debate on gender identity at the Conservative party conference, PA Media reports.
Andrew Boff, who was sitting in the front row, said the event was “not a debate” and views being presented by the panel, which included former Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies were “one sided”.
Shadow energy secretary Claire Coutinho was chairing the session.
Boff is deputy chairman of the London assembly and previously led the Tories in the assembly.
Davies said she would not apologise for standing up for women’s and girls’ rights.
Two years ago Boff was removed from the Tory conference after heckling Suella Braverman over a speech he described as transphobic and homophobic.
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Farage claims Tory party ‘finished’, after Reform UK announces 20 councillor defections
Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, says 20 Tory councillors have defected to his party. There have been a series of announcements all morning.
He says:
This morning we announced that 20 Conservative Councillors have defected to Reform UK.
The Conservative Party is finished.
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Chris Philp says Tories would allow stop and search without grounds for suspicion in crime hotspot areas
Here are more lines from Chris Philp’s speech to the conference this morning.
It’s insane that the smell of cannabis alone, or somebody wearing a menacing mask alone, does not generally allow, legally, a stop and search.
Now in my view, a single suspicion indicator should be enough.
So, in our hotspot areas, we will allow routine stop and search without suspicion. Anyone can be searched.
We will change the law to do this, and we will triple the use of stop and search.
It is time to end the madness of police showing up on someone’s doorstep because they have offended someone online – the police should catch real criminals, not off-colour tweets.
Policing non-criminal social media posts is a catastrophic waste of time, and it tramples on free speech.
In government, we would end this nonsense, and we will abolish non-crime hate incidents. So you can tweet away!
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He said the Tories would scrap the anti-racism commitment plan published by the College of Policing and the Police Chiefs’ Council, branding it “absurd”.
What I’ve got to tell you now will shock you.
There is a so-called anti-racism commitment plan published by the College of Policing and the Police Chiefs’ Council that literally says policing should not be colour blind. Let me be clear, yes, it should!
Treating racial groups differently to engineer the same arrest rate, even if the offending rates are different, is immoral, plain wrong. People should stand equal before the law. It is that simple.
Woke nonsense in policing has to end and, as home secretary, I will scrap that absurd document.
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He said under the Tories people who express racial or religious hatred, or support for terrorism, would be removed from the country if they are not British citizens.
Chris Philp giving his conference speech. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The GuardianShareKemi Badenoch being interviewed at the Tory conference this morning. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The GuardianShare
Reform UK puts out multiple announcements about councillor defections from Tories, with more than 12 switching already
Rowena Mason
Rowena Mason is the Guardian’s Whitehall editor.
More than a dozen Conservative councillors have defected to Reform today, with the party dripping out announcements every half hour or so since 7am.
They include Robbie Lammas, a former chief of staff to Tory MP and
shadow cabinet minister Richard Holden. The Medway councillor said:
The Conservative party is over. Only Reform can deliver the change Britain needs.
Another defector is Denise Howard, a former ITV producer and press officer for the Conservatives, who has now switched to Reform as a councillor for East Riding of Yorkshire.
There has been no big defection of any MPs or prominent former MPs, though, which will have Kemi Badenoch breathing a sigh of relief given persistent rumours that Jacob Rees-Mogg, Andrew Rosindell or Suella Braverman could be about to jump ship.
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Badenoch accepts EU could suspend criminal law enforcement cooperation if UK leaves ECHR
In her interview on the Today programme this morning Kemi Badenoch accepted that, if the UK leaves the European convention on human rights (ECHR), the EU could withdraw criminal law enforcement cooperation.
Badenoch was asked about the report from Lord Wolfson KC, the shadow attorney general, about the practical implications of leaving the (ECHR).
Wolfson said that the entire post-Brexit trade deal with the EU is not conditional on the UK remaining in the ECHR. But the part of the treaty dealing with criminal law enforcement cooperation is conditional on the UK being signed up to the convention, he said.
If the UK were to leave, the EU would be justified in suspending those cooperation measures, he said. But he said that each side can withdraw from the whole treaty anyway with 12 months’ notice. He said:
The real analysis is a political one as to whether the EU would ostensibly rely on ECHR withdrawal to threaten immediate termination of that part [the criminal law enforcement cooperation part], potentially with a view to renegotiating the TCA [trade and cooperation agreement] …
In conclusion, there is no escaping the fact that withdrawal from the ECHR would provide the EU with a ground to terminate part 3 of the TCA. However, there exists a right to terminate by either party for any reason whatsoever in any event on twelve months’ notice. As such, the consequences of any such withdrawal are more likely to be political than legal. There is, of course, a prospect that the EU may waive its right to terminate, and proceed on the basis of the current TCA terms. That is a political analysis beyond the scope of this advice.
Anna Foster asked Badenoch how she would deal with these problems if she went ahead with ECHR withdrawal.
Badenoch said she commissioned the report because she wanted to know what the difficulties would be. She said she was being honest about the problems.
She said the trade agreement allowed the UK to terminate it after 12 months anyway. And she said the trade agreement could continue if the UK left the ECHR. She went on:
[Wolfson] is talking about potential things that could happen that we’ll need to think about in case people [the EU] behave in a way that would be extraordinary. He’s not saying that this will definitely happen, but I want to know what all the possibilities are.
She also said the Tories would spend the next four years dealing with these issues. Alex Burghart, the shadow Northern Ireland secretary and shadow Cabinet Office minister, will be working on this, she said.
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Here is a view of the conference hall where Chris Philp is speaking. No wonder his jokes are falling flat. (See 10.17am.)
Jenrick addressing Tory conference Photograph: Rowena MasonShare
Here is the audio of Robert Jenrick making his “not seeing another white face” comment.
Robert Jenrick complains of ‘not seeing another white face’ during Birmingham visit – audioShare
Philp’s speech is full of jokes.
He says he set up a delivery company after he left university, so “I literally know what is is like to deliver”.
He says Labour ministers have only worked in creative industries, “mainly CV creation”.
He says Rachel Reeves worked in customer complaints, “which I imagine is coming in pretty hand right now”.
And he says Labour has only sent a handful of people back to France where “maybe one of them will have a turn at being French prime minister”.
But the jokes are all falling flat. He delivers the punchline, and no one laughs. That is probably not so much because of the quality (they are no worse than most conference jokes), but because there aren’t many people in the audience.
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Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, is addressing the conference now.
He says he wants to start with “a simple fact”.
He says:
Keir Starmer lied to get power. He lied to the Labour party about what he believed in, he lied to the country about what he would do, and he lied to himself that he was up to the job.
No wonder Labour spent their conference plotting to replace Keir Starmer, who believes nothing, with Andrew Burnham, who apparently believes anything.
And that’s why I’m proud to be a Conservative.
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Jenrick defends ‘didn’t see another white face’ comment, saying he was making case for integrated communities
Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, has also been giving interviews this morning, and he has defended the comments about Handsworth reported by the Guardian that have been described as racist.
I want to live in a country which is well integrated. I want people to be living side-by-side, I never want to see segregated or even ghettoised communities. We want people of all skin colours, of all religions, to be living in harmonious, well-integrated communities with our kids growing up alongside each other.
And I’m afraid in certain parts of the country, there are communities where that just isn’t the case, and parts of Handsworth in Birmingham, where I was earlier in the year, a place I know quite well, growing up in the West Midlands, just don’t resemble that. That makes me very worried.
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He defended mentioning colour. Speaking on Radio 5 Live, he pointed out that the comments reported in the Guardian included him saying: “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.” Asked, if that was the case, why he had mentioned colour, he replied:
Because it’s incredibly important that we have a fully integrated society regardless of the colour of their skin or the faith that they abide by.
I think it’s a very dangerous place if we have a country where people are living in ghettoised communities where people are not living together side by side in harmonious communities.
There are real dangers if we don’t live in a well-integrated community, then this can lead to serious, serious challenges.
Look, just the other day here in Manchester, we saw a man who had lived in this country for 30 years, but was clearly not integrated into our society, clearly did not share British values, committing an appalling terrorist attack by going to a synagogue and killing British Jews. That is, at the extreme level, where failures of integration lead, and that’s why we’ve got to have a debate about this, and not have it shut down whenever anyone puts their head above the parapet and talks about it publicly.
I think that’s an absolutely disgraceful and ridiculous comment. I tell you what gives rise to extremist views, with all due respect, journalists like yourself, trying to shut down legitimate and fair debate. What you are implying is that you can’t say comments like that.
Unlike Badenoch (see 7.41am and 9.03am), he did not claim that his comments had not been accurately reported by the Guardian.
The events in Manchester are subject to an ongoing police investigation and we won’t be allowing comments relating directly to them BTL. If readers don’t comply with at, comments will get closed.
Robert Jenrick being interviewed this morning. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The GuardianShare
Updated at 12.16 CEST
Parker says Jenrick’s comments were racist because he focused on colour to make negative point about Handsworth
In his interview on BBC Radio WM, Richard Parker, the Labour mayor of the West Midlands, was asked if he thought Robert Jenrick’s comments about Handsworth were racist. Parker replied:
I do. Because he’s set out intentionally to draw on a particular issue – people’s colour – to identify the point he wanted to make.
No other politician that I know in the West Midlands of a mainstream party would seek to do that explicitly and with the intent that he did.
The issue for me is that rather than reflect on the positive aspects of that community … he wanted to draw on a particular issue of ethnicity and colour. I think that is simply wrong.
It shows a lack of respect and understanding for those communities. And I doubt whether or not if he went to a largely white community anywhere in the West Midlands he’d be making a comment similar to what he made about Handsworth.
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Labour West Midlands mayor Richard Parker suggests Jenrick should be thrown out of Tory party over Handsworth comments
Richard Parker, the Labour mayor of the West Midlands, has condemned Robert Jenrick for his comments about Handsworth. According to PA Media, Parker said he considered Jenrick’s comments about Handsworth racist and questioned he would have made equivalent remarks about a predominantly white area.
Speaking to BBC Radio WM, Parker said:
I’m angry, I’m appalled. Frankly, I’m disgusted and I want everyone to know in Handsworth – and I’ve got many friends in Handsworth – that I will stand up for you.
Handsworth is a really vibrant community with lots of faiths and ethnicities working together and living together. The Soho Road is one of the most vibrant and successful high streets anywhere in the country.
Claiming Jenrick had defined people by the colour of their skin “with intent and with a real purpose” and gone to Handsworth without reflecting on the positive contribution local people make to Birmingham, Parker said:
That’s terribly disappointing. That raises serious questions about whether someone like Robert Jenrick should be allowed to be even a member of the Conservative party.
I think there are serious issues now for Kemi Badenoch to discuss with Robert Jenrick and senior members of the Conservative party about whether someone like Jenrick should be allowed to stand and sit as a Conservative politician.
Andy Street, Parker’s Tory predecessor as mayor, has also condemned Jenrick’s comments. (See 8.13am.)
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