RACE BULLIES TARGET PRITI
She accuses Labour MPs of trying to silence her after telling of the abuse she suffered
PRITI Patel last night accused Labour MPs of trying to ‘silence’ her after she spoke out about her personal experiences of racism.
The Home Secretary said earlier this week that she would ‘not take lectures’ on racism from the Opposition as she described how she was herself frequently subjected to abuse as a child.
It came after she condemned ‘ mob rule’ that marred Black Lives Matter protests at which a Winston Churchill statue was vandalised. But dozens of ethnic minority Labour MPs yesterday seized on her comments to accuse her of playing down the ‘very real racism’ faced by black people.
In a letter to Miss Patel, they said being a ‘person of colour’ did not automatically make her an ‘authority’ on all forms of racism.
Miss Patel, the child of Gujarati Indian parents who fled to the UK from Uganda shortly before Idi Amin expelled all Asians from the country, said she would ‘not be silenced’.
Ministers and other senior Tories accused the Labour MPs of making ‘utterly misguided and irresponsible’ comments.
The letter to Miss Patel was sent by shadow minister for community cohesion Naz Shah and co-signed by more than 30 Labour MPs. It read: ‘We write to you as Black Asian and Ethnic Minority (BAME) Labour MPs to highlight our dismay at the way you used your heritage and experiences of racism to gaslight the very real racism faced by black people and communities in the UK.’ Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation designed to make someone doubt their own sanity.
Sharing the letter online yesterday, Miss Patel said: ‘I will not be silenced by Labour MPs who continue to dismiss the contributions of those who don’t conform to their view of how ethnic minorities should behave.’ Health Secretary Matt Hancock said: ‘ Of course Priti Patel was not wrong to talk of her personal experiences of racism. I’ve seen this letter and I abhor this divisive identity politics being levelled at Priti Patel.’
Tory MP Kemi Badenoch added: ‘It is shameful for Labour to bully using someone’s race.’
Ex-chancellor Sajid Javid said: ‘Imagine listening to an ethnic minority woman’s history of suffering racist abuse – and then deciding that you’d rather condemn the victim than her abusers.’ Foreign Office Minister James Cleverly called the letter ‘deeply offensive and crass’.
International Trade Secretary Liz Truss said: ‘I stand with my friend and colleague Priti Patel and applaud her courage in standing up to this.’ A source close to Miss Patel said the letter tried to ‘shut down another BAME person who had suffered racist abuse’.
It came as a BBC comedian posted a joke online suggesting Miss Patel does not like curry, prompting a string of responses branding her a ‘coconut’, a racial slur. Guz Khan, 34, star of BBC3’s Man Like Mobeen, posted a photo of her pulling a face with the message: ‘Shall we have a curry for dinner tonight Priti?’ One Twitter user responded: ‘Only if it’s a coconut curry’.
‘Coconut’ is used to describe someone ‘white inside and brown on the outside’, meaning they pander to white people’s views.
The row began on Monday when Miss Patel gave a statement on public disorder following antiracism protests attended by 100,000 people across Britain.
Labour’s Florence Eshalomi demanded she ‘act now’, saying: ‘Black lives matter and we need to see this Government doing something about that.’ Miss Patel said the Labour MP had ‘effectively said this Government doesn’t understand racial inequality’. She added: ‘On that basis, it must have been a very different Home Secretary who as a child was frequently called a “P***” in the playground.’
A number of ethnic minority Labour MPs did not add their name to the letter. Leader Sir Keir Starmer did not sign. It was not clear if he backed the comments. Miss Shah was suspended from the Labour Party in 2016 over antiSemitic remarks on social media.
‘Deeply offensive and crass’