UkipAM facing Senedd suspension after ‘racial abuse’
AUKIP AM who was recorded referring to a Labour MP as a “f***ing coconut” should be suspended from the National Assembly for one week without pay, according to a cross-party committee.
North Wales AM Michelle Brown used the offensive term about former Shadow Cabinet member Chuka Umunna during a phone conversation last year with her then adviser Nigel Williams.
In the call, she described Mr Umunna as “black on the outside, white on the inside”.
She also described former Labour MP Tristram Hunt as a “t**t”, before saying ex-President Barack Obama was “exactly the same” as Mr Umunna.
During the conversation, Ms Brown said: “I don’t say this lightly ... but Chuka Umunna is a f***ing coconut.
“He’s got as much understanding of an ordinary black man’s experience as I have.
“He may be black but his mother or his father was British from a very, very influential family.
“He is a coconut – black on the outside, white on the inside, and Barack Obama’s exactly the same.”
Ms Brown apologised to anyone offended by her comments and accepted that the language she used about Mr Umunna was “inappropriate”.
The Labour group at the Assembly made a formal complaint about her comments, and the Standards of Conduct Committee has now recommended that Ms Brown – herself an alternate member of the committee – should be suspended.
In his investigation report, which has been leaked to the BBC, Standards Commissioner Sir Roderick Evans QC found that the term “coconut” fell below the standard of conduct required of AMs.
He said the point that Ms Brown was making – that, despite Mr Umunna’s heritage, his privileged upbringing meant he had no greater understanding of the lives of ordinary members of the black and minority ethnic community – was “within the range of points that a politician is entitled to make”.
But he said the fact remained that “Ms Brown, in making her point, resorted to using a term of racial abuse”.
Ms Brown told Sir Roderick that the comments complained of “were made during a private and personal conversation between two friends and party colleagues”.
But the Commissioner said that was “not realistic” as she had been discussing the terms of employment of a person whom she was considering employing.
The committee agreed, saying “the term used in this instance was a term of racial abuse, and as such utterly unacceptable”.
It concluded that Ms Brown had brought the Assembly into disrepute, and said the language she used was “below the expectations of an Assembly Member and that racism has no place in society”.
According to the report, Ms Brown argued that the term was “not racist”.
She told Sir Roderick that she did not apologise “for using the verbal short-cut coconut”, and claimed there was no evidence the Assembly had been brought into disrepute.
Ms Brown said her words “were recorded and released to the press without my consent and the motivation for the release was personal spite, not a desire to further the public good”.
Because the Labour group made the initial complaint only three members of the four member committee – Plaid Cymru’s Llyr Gruffydd, Tory Paul Davies and Ukip’s Gareth Bennett – participated in the discussion which recommended that Ms Brown be suspended,
Labour AM Jayne Bryant, who normally chairs the committee, did not play a role in the committee’s deliberations.
A spokesman for Ms Brown said: “Of course Michelle will be appealing as the committee have reached the wrong conclusion.”
The recommendation that she should be suspended for a week will be debated at an Assembly plenary session.