UK Tories urged to return money to race row donor

Britain’s ruling Conservatives on Wednesday faced growing pressure to return millions of pounds to a major donor accused of making racist comments about a high-profile black lawmaker.

Businessman Frank Hester, 57, is alleged to have said that Diane Abbott — Britain’s longest-serving black MP — made him “want to hate all black women” and that she “should be shot”.

After several Tory MPs refused to condemn the 2019 remarks as racist, a spokesperson for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak conceded late on Tuesday that the comments were “racist and wrong”.

The main opposition Labour party, tipped to win a general election due this year, has called for the Tories to return £10 million ($12.8 million) donated by Hester, CEO of software company The Phoenix Partnership.

“If Rishi Sunak had anything about him, if he had any backbone, he would pay that money back today,” Labour MP Jonathan Ashworth told Sky News television.

Sunak is also coming under pressure from members of his own party over the controversy.

“I would think about the company I kept and I would give that money back,” Andy Street, the Conservative Mayor of the West Midlands, told BBC radio.

Tory MP Nus Ghani tweeted that “zero tolerance on racism is just a slogan in today’s politics”, although she did not specifically mention the row in her post.

The Guardian newspaper, which broke the story late on Monday, reported that Hester made the comments during a meeting at his company’s headquarters in 2019.

In a follow-up story on Tuesday night, it wrote that Hester had also said “no room for the Indians” during a crowded meeting, and suggested that they “climb on the roof, like on the roof of the train there”.

Hester has admitted making “rude” comments about Abbott, but claimed that they had “nothing to do with her gender nor colour of skin”.

Abbott was first elected to parliament in 1987 and sat as a Labour MP until she was suspended in April last year for saying Jewish people were not subject to racism “all their lives”.

pdh/phz/bc

AFP

(NAMPA / AFP)