Another week, another Tory racism scandal.
This time, Frank Hester – the Conservative Party’s largest donor – allegedly made incredibly racist and violent remarks in 2019 about my friend Diane Abbott MP and all Black women.
He reportedly said: ‘You see Diane Abbott on the TV, and you’re just like I hate, you just want to hate all Black women because she’s there… but I think she should be shot. [The executive] and Diane Abbott need to be shot. She’s stupid… It’s not as good as her dying. It would be much better if she died. She’s consuming resource. She’s eating food that other people could eat. You know?’
These are incredibly disturbing and sinister comments to come from someone so involved in our politics. Diane has understandably said that his comments are ‘frightening’ – and I am frightened for her.
Frank Hester has tried to claim since that his comments were ‘rude’, but that ‘his criticism had nothing to do with her gender nor colour of skin’.
But let me be clear – these remarks represent deep-seated racism, nothing less, and we need to treat it as such.
After initially dragging his feet – a spokesperson for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak finally said: ‘The comments allegedly made by Frank Hester were racist and wrong.’
I agree, even if it took far too long.
And though the Prime Minister also said that Hester has apologised, as far as I can tell, he only apologised for being rude, not for being racist.
The fact that Hester apparently wants to ‘hate all Black women’ is the very definition of racism and prejudice. Calling for an MP to be ‘shot’ and essentially starved is sick, dangerous and exposes a very worrying level of violent behaviour and beliefs.
That these alleged comments came from a man who has received £400m in government and NHS contracts and donated £10m to the Tories – the nation’s governing party – in the past year, is just chilling. It shows that prejudice goes right to the top.
On Monday, I launched a motion in Parliament, EDM 495, calling on the Prime Minister and all Leaders to condemn these shocking remarks. I’m delighted to have received cross-party support, with MPs from all major parties and more signing my motion by the hour. I want every single politician to take a stand.
It is vital that we stand united against hate, division and racism of all forms, no matter our political allegiance. We simply cannot allow such violent, discriminatory remarks to become normalised in our politics or our society. It should worry us all.
I have written recently about Rishi Sunak’s inaction on Islamophobia; now I fear we are seeing his weakness in dealing with anti-Black racism.
Shockingly, some Tories seemingly couldn’t call this out for what it was.
Cabinet minister Mel Stride said that, while Hester’s alleged remarks were ‘inappropriate’, they were not ‘gender-based or race-based’. While Tory peer Lord Marland tried to argue: ‘He does a lot of business in Jamaica, he does business in Malaysia, Bangladesh and places like that, so he’s not a racist.’
Then came the kicker. Kevin Hollinrake, parliamentary under secretary for the Department of Business and Trade, said that the Tory Party would accept another £10m donation from him ‘on the basis that we don’t believe Mr Hester’s a racist’.
Frankly, that lack of morality should worry us all.
If Sunak will not stamp out racism with his friends and in his own Party, then how can he possibly fight racism in the country?
I believe that all the contracts Hester holds must be rescinded immediately – and he should be blocked from holding contracts in the future.
Hester is the custodian of millions of UK medical records through the government contracts, but he should be nowhere near our sensitive data. He simply cannot be trusted, nor can this Government if these are the people they hand our sensitive data to.
It is sinister that the Tories regularly give public money to such people and then it ends up back in the Tory coffers through Tory party donations.
And the Prime Minister must immediately instruct his party to redirect every single penny of the donations Frank Hester made to the Conservative Party towards good causes, charities and organisations which fight racism and discrimination such as Hope Not Hate and Black Women Rising.
Or, they could even ask Diane for some suitable local organisations in her constituency. After all, why should Hester get his money back after what he has done?
He needs to address his behaviour – if he is truly sorry, then he should hand back his OBE and issue a genuine apology, which accepts that his remarks were racist.
If you allow hatred and discrimination to fester and fail to condemn it, then you open the doors to the far-right – you send a tacit message to others that it is acceptable to racially abuse people. That is what is at stake here.
So too, the Government must show it is serious about condemning violent rhetoric.
This is already an extremely sensitive time in our politics, and we know the very real dangers MPs face and have faced, so for someone to call for Diane to be shot is simply unforgivable.
I know what it feels like. A man named Stephen Peddie was sentenced to eight weeks in prison, suspended for 12 months, after he tweeted about me, saying: ’Someone please explain to me why a bullet to the back of the head is anything but justified and wholly deserved.’
It is not right, and it is not fair – enough is enough.
I say to Rishi Sunak, you cannot be selective about the safety of MPs because a man with racist views gives you £10m. You cannot take millions from someone who talks about wanting to ‘hate all Black women’, and who makes such openly violent remarks about any person.
It is time to properly act.
The Tories must cancel Hester’s contracts and redirect his money towards good causes – or we will rightly assume once and for all that the Conservatives do not care about racism.
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