Kemi Badenoch has said there was “nothing wrong” with Robert Jenrick’s “not another white face” comments, insisting he was just making an observation.
The shadow justice secretary was criticised for comments where he claimed he “didn’t see another white face” during a visit to Birmingham earlier this year.
He made the comments after a 90-minute visit to Handsworth, Birmingham, in March, adding “that’s not the kind of country I want to live in”, The Guardian reported.
Asked about the remarks on Tuesday, Ms Badenoch criticised the left-leaning newspaper and said she took its reporting “with a pinch of salt”.
The Tory leader said: “The fact is these are recordings out of context, I don’t know what was being discussed before.
“In and of itself, it’s a factual statement. If he said he didn’t see another white face, he might have been making an observation. There’s nothing wrong with making observations.
“I wasn’t there, so I can’t say how many faces he saw, but the point is that there are many people in our country who are not integrating. I heard that one of the MPs of that area was accusing him of racism. I completely disagree with that. I want to make that very clear.”
And Mr Jenrick doubled down on the comments on Tuesday and said he “won’t shy away” from issues of integration.
Asked if he had any regrets about his comments, he told BBC Radio 5 Live, “No, not at all, and I won’t shy away from these issues.”
But he flagged that he said at the end of the remarks that “it’s not about skin colour or faith”.
Asked why he then brought up skin colour, he said: “Because it’s incredibly important that we have a fully integrated society regardless of the colour of their skin or the faith that they abide by.”
He added: “I think it’s a very dangerous place if we have a country where people are living in ghettoised communities where people are not living together side by side in harmonious communities … We’ve seen the damage that that can do in society, so it’s incredibly important that we resolve this.”
The former Conservative mayor of the West Midlands, Andy Street, said “Robert is wrong” to claim Handsworth has a problem with integration.
He told BBC Newsnight: “I was mayor for seven years and was very proud to be mayor of the most diverse place in Britain.
“To put it bluntly, Robert is wrong. It’s a place I know very well … It’s actually a very integrated place. If you go along the main streets there you will see Sikhs, Hindus, Muslims, Christians of African and Caribbean origin, and of course white people as well.”
Labour said people of colour should not have to “justify their Britishness” to the shadow justice secretary.
Speaking at an Aldridge-Brownhills Conservative Association dinner on 14 March, Mr Jenrick went on to say it was “not about the colour of your skin or your faith”, but about people “living alongside each other”.
In the leaked recording, Mr Jenrick could be heard saying: “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.
“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.”
Labour Party chair Anna Turley criticised Mr Jenrick for judging “his own level of comfort by whether there are other white faces around”.
The MP for Redcar said: “This weekend, Kemi Badenoch said she stood against a politics that ‘reduces people to categories and then pits them against each other’.
“Robert Jenrick, in his leaked comments, reduces people to the colour of their skin and judges his own level of comfort by whether there are other white faces around.
“His comments clearly cross a red line that his leader has rightly laid down.
“People of colour should not have to justify their Englishness or their Britishness, or their presence in this country to Robert Jenrick or anyone else.
“Robert Jenrick needs to urgently explain himself and why these comments are in any way compatible with what his party leader said yesterday.”
