Sir Keir Starmer has challenged Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to pluck up “the courage to hand back” £10 million to a top Tory donor accused of making racist remarks.
The Labour leader used Prime Minister’s Questions to press Mr Sunak about Frank Hester, the Conservative backer alleged to have said Diane Abbott, Britain’s longest-serving black MP, made him “want to hate all black women” and that she “should be shot”.
Sir Keir also claimed it “could be 2022 all over again”, as he sought to draw comparisons with Liz Truss’s short-lived premiership and Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s announcement of “unfunded” tax cuts in the Budget.
The Prime Minister in return hit out at past remarks from senior Labour figures, including deputy leader Angela Rayner referring to Conservatives as “scum”, and claimed Sir Keir’s silence on them “speaks volumes”.
“Speaks volumes”
The Commons exchanges came after Post Office minister Kevin Hollinrake said on Wednesday that returning Mr Hester’s cash is not the “right thing to do” and suggested the Tories would accept further donations from the businessman.
Ministers and Downing Street refused to describe Mr Hester’s comments as racist for most of Tuesday, but the Prime Minister’s spokesman finally labelled them as such in the evening.
Opening their weekly Commons head-to-head, Sir Keir told the Commons: “Is the Prime Minister proud to be bankrolled by someone using racist and misogynistic language when he says the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) ‘makes you want to hate all black women?’”
Mr Sunak replied: “The alleged comments were wrong, they were racist, he has rightly apologised for them and that remorse should be accepted.
“There is no place for racism in Britain, and the Government I lead is living proof of that.”
Racist, woman-hating threat
The Labour leader continued: “The man bankrolling the Prime Minister also said that the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington should be shot.
“How low would he have to sink, what racist, woman-hating threat of violence would he have to make before the Prime Minister plucked up the courage to hand back the £10 million that he’s taken from him?”
Mr Sunak replied: “As I said, the gentleman apologised genuinely for his comments and that remorse should be accepted.
“But he talks about language, he might want to reflect on the double standards of his deputy leader calling her opponents scum, his shadow foreign secretary comparing Conservatives to Nazis and the man that he wanted to make chancellor talking about lynching a female minister.
“His silence on that speaks volumes.”
“Shame!”
Ms Abbott could be seen shaking her head at the Prime Minister’s answers, while other Labour MPs cried “Shame!”
Sir Keir then drew comparisons between the situation and how ministers had been asked to support now Reform Party MP Lee Anderson’s claims that Labour London Mayor Sadiq Khan was controlled by Islamists.
He claimed the Ashfield MP, who could be seen sat next to Rochdale MP George Galloway in the chamber after defecting from the Conservatives, was now “warming up” the opposition benches.
Sir Keir also suggested that Mr Sunak had attempted to “pose as some kind of unifier” with his speech on extremism outside Downing Street following Mr Galloway’s by-election victory, but now found himself “tongue-tied, shrinking in sophistry, hoping he can deflect for long enough that it will all go away”.
Mr Sunak said he was “absolutely not going to take any lectures” from Sir Keir, who he said “chose to serve a leader who let antisemitism run rife in his Labour Party, those are his actions, those are his values and that’s how he should be judged”.
Sir Keir responded: “The problem is that he’s describing a Labour Party that no longer exists.”
“Unfounded commitments”
In his final question to the Prime Minister, Sir Keir criticised the Chancellor for making “£46 billion of unfunded commitments”, adding: “They tried that under the last administration and everybody else is paying the price.”
Sir Keir said: “All we need now is an especially hardy lettuce and it could be 2022 all over again.
“Is it any wonder that he is too scared to call an election when the public can see that the only way to protect their country, their pension, and their NHS from the madness of this Tory Party is by voting Labour?”
The Prime Minister claimed the Government was protecting pensions, investing in the NHS, and supporting working people with tax cuts, adding: “All we have from him is a £28 billion unfunded promise. I had a look at it.”
Producing a pamphlet from under his folder of notes and tapping it, Mr Sunak added: “It is here, it is all here, ‘making Britain a clean energy superpower’, he has still stuck to it and if you look through it carefully there is billions in spending he has already committed to Scotland, billions for Wales, there is actually money for north London too I noticed, but the problem is, none of it funded.
“So why doesn’t he come clean and tell them under his plans British people’s taxes are going up?”