MANCHESTER, England — Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride has broken ranks with his party leader over controversial comments made by colleague Robert Jenrick.
Speaking to Anne McElvoy at the POLITICO Pub at the Conservative Party conference on Tuesday, Stride said that Jenrick’s complaint about not seeing “another white face” in a part of Birmingham were “not words that I would have used.”
The senior Conservative politician’s comments conflict with his party leader Kemi Badenoch’s response to Jenrick’s remarks.
The Conservative leader said this morning the shadow justice secretary had made a “factual statement” and there was “nothing wrong with making observations.”
Former Tory West Midlands Mayor Andy Street has criticized Jenrick over the comments he made at an event in March, which were first reported by The Guardian.
“I went to Handsworth in Birmingham the other day to do a video on litter and it was absolutely appalling. It’s as close as I’ve come to a slum in this country,” Jenrick said in a recording. “But the other thing I noticed there was that it was one of the worst integrated places I’ve ever been to. In fact, in the hour and a half I was filming news there I didn’t see another white face.”
“That’s not the kind of country I want to live in. I want to live in a country where people are properly integrated. 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.”
Jenrick has since defended the comments, but Stride told POLITICO: “Those are not words that I would have used.”
He added: “Everybody chooses their own words. The question is now being asked… well does the fact he has said that make him a racist? No I don’t believe it does at all.
“But I think everybody chooses their own words and I’ll be frank and say they’re not words that I would have chosen.”
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