Badenoch defends Jenrick’s ‘no white faces in Birmingham’ comments

Kemi Badenoch has defended her colleague Robert Jenrick over his complaint about not seeing “another white face” in part of Birmingham but said the debate should not be about what people look like in the streets.

The Conservative leader said the shadow justice secretary had made a “factual statement” and there was “nothing wrong with making observations”. But she also told BBC Breakfast: “I don’t think this is where the debate should be about how many faces people see on the street and what they look like.”

Jenrick has been criticised by MPs and the former Tory West Midlands mayor Andy Street over the remarks first published by the Guardian, which he made at a dinner in March.

He told the dinner: “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. That’s not the right way we want to live as a country.”

Street, who was West Midlands mayor for the Tories until 2024, said Handsworth was very well integrated with residents a mixture of South Asian, black, white and other ethnic groups living alongside each other. “Putting it bluntly, Robert is wrong,” he told the BBC’s Newsnight. “Handsworth, it’s come a hell of a long way in the 40 years since the last civil disturbances there and it’s actually a very integrated place.”

The current West Midlands mayor, Labour’s Richard Parker, went further, accusing Jenrick of racism and questioning whether he was fit to serve as a Conservative MP.

“I’m angry, I’m appalled. Frankly, I’m disgusted and I want everyone to know in Handsworth – and I’ve got many friends in Handsworth – that I will stand up for you, Parker told West Midlands radio.

“Handsworth is a really vibrant community with lots of faiths and ethnicities working together and living together. The Soho Road is one of the most vibrant and successful high streets anywhere in the country.

“I think there are serious issues now for Kemi Badenoch to discuss with Robert Jenrick and senior members of the Conservative party about whether someone like Jenrick should be allowed to stand and sit as a Conservative politician.”

A spokesperson for Jenrick declined to comment initially. Later on Monday, Jenrick defended his comments, saying: “Six separate government reports over 20 years have highlighted the problem of parallel communities and called for a frank and honest conversation about the issue.

“The situation is no better today. Unlike other politicians, I won’t shy away from this issue. We have to integrate communities if we are to be a united country.”

Jenrick later told Sky News that he disagreed with Street and was well aware of the area of Handsworth having grown up in the West Midlands and gone to university in Birmingham.

“I don’t resile from those comments. I want to live in a country which is well integrated. I want people to be living side by side. I never want to see segregated or even ghettoised communities. We want people of all skin colours, of all religions to be living in harmonious, well-integrated communities … I’m afraid in some parts of the country there are communities where that just isn’t the case. Parts of Handsworth … just don’t resemble that and that makes me very worried.”

Badenoch was pressed on Jenrick’s comments as she gave interviews a day before her big speech at Conservative conference on Wednesday.

She cast aspersions repeatedly on the Guardian’s reporting of the remarks, saying they may not be accurate and that the context was not known, despite the recording having been published. Badenoch also said she had not listened to the recording.

The Tory leader told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I believe, knowing Rob and hearing him speak, is that he wants, as I do, a country that is well integrated. It shouldn’t matter what you look like, your skin colour should not matter, that’s the speech I gave on Sunday. We are a multiracial country. But being a multicultural country where people have different loyalties, different values. That will fragment us, we need a socially cohesive country. That’s something the Conservatives are fighting for.

Asked whether what people looked like was a good measure for integration, Badenoch said: “The right measure for integration is that people don’t care what people look like … He was making a point which I don’t have the context of … we are a multiracial country and that means we have to work harder to bring people together. We look at the content of people’s character, not the colour of their skin. But how do we do that if we are too scared to point out where things are going wrong?”

Ayoub Khan, the independent MP for Birmingham Perry Barr, which covers Handsworth, said Jenrick had “misrepresented a storied and diverse community, awkwardly distorting the product of an all-out bin strike to fit his culture-warrior narrative filled with far-right cliches”.