Robert
Jenrick accused of fuelling ‘toxic nationalism’ with Birmingham claims
Shadow
justice secretary stands by comments made in March amid criticism including
from a Tory colleague
Rowena
Mason Whitehall editor
Tue 7 Oct
2025 16.51 BST
Robert
Jenrick has been accused of fuelling a “fire of toxic nationalism” after he
doubled down on his complaint about “not seeing another white face” in part of
Birmingham.
The
shadow justice secretary was criticised by politicians across the parties,
local leaders and the bishop of Birmingham after the Guardian published his
remarks from March.
At a
Conservative dinner, Jenrick had complained of not seeing another white face in
the neighbourhood of Handsworth and said it was not the kind of country he
wanted to live in due to a lack of integration – before saying it was not about
skin colour or faith.
David
Lammy, the deputy prime minister and justice secretary, suggested Jenrick was
judging people based on the colour of their skin, while Mel Stride, the shadow
chancellor, broke ranks by saying the remarks were “not words that I would have
used”. Zack Polanski, the Green party leader, said it was racism.
The Right
Rev Dr Michael Volland, the bishop of Birmingham, said the comments “have the
potential to generate anxiety and stir up division and … can feed into a
harmful narrative that provides fuel for a fire of toxic nationalism”.
Andy
Street, the Conservative former mayor of the West Midlands, said Jenrick was
wrong in saying the multi-ethnic neighbourhood of Handsworth was not
integrated, while Labour’s Richard Parker, who succeeded Street as mayor, said
he was “incredibly sad but also very angry”.
“Birmingham
is a proud, diverse city built by generations from every background. We don’t
separate people by the colour of their skin – and that’s what Jenrick has done
here with his comments,” Parker said. “What also concerns me is that there were
Conservative politicians in that room, from our region, and they didn’t speak
up. Silence in the face of this kind of rhetoric is not leadership.”
Jenrick
was repeatedly pressed over the comments on the day of his speech to the
Conservative party conference.
In the
remarks in March, Jenrick was recorded as 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. That’s not the right way we want to live as a
country.”
On
Tuesday he repeatedly told interviewers that he stood by the comments and did
not resile from them as it would be wrong to “shut down an important debate
that we have to have as a country” about integration.
When a
Sky News journalist put it to him that his remarks could embolden far-right
groups who did not want to see black and brown people living in the UK, Jenrick
said it was “an absolutely disgraceful and ridiculous” question and accused the
journalist of trying to silence debate about integration, which he said in
itself could fuel extremism.
In an
interview for the Telegraph’s Daily T podcast, Jenrick was pressed on whether
he would complain that an all-white area was too monocultural, if he really was
making a point about how society should be integrated and reflect the makeup of
the country.
Jenrick
replied: “The left do. Decolonise the countryside, decolonise the National
Trust. The left do make those arguments … What I said is that it’s not about
the colour of your skin or your faith. My point is that we have communities
that do not reflect the breadth of the people who live in our country. That is
self-evidently true.”
Kemi
Badenoch, the Conservative leader, defended Jenrick, saying he had made a
“factual statement” and that 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’s
comments about Handsworth related to a video about litter and fly-tipping that
he recorded for GB News. In the footage, he talks about being in Handsworth but
is actually pictured walking down a street in nearby Aston. There are no
interviews with any local people. A clip of flytipping in Aston put on Facebook
by a Liberal Democrat councillor, Mumtaz Hussain, is also shown. Jenrick later
went to interview residents in the Conservative area of Sutton Coldfield about
flytipping.
Responding
to Jenrick on Tuesday, Lammy said: “Unlike Robert Jenrick, the public knows
Britishness isn’t about retreating into suspicion or judging people by the
colour of their skin. It’s about pride in what we build and contribute
together. While the Conservative party feeds off division and decline, Labour
is delivering the patriotic renewal our country needs.”
Bridget
Phillipson, the education secretary, told LBC that Jenrick “has a lot of
explaining to do”. She asked: “Is he suggesting that the colour of your skin
makes you less British than someone else?”
Polanski,
the Green party leader, went further, saying: “Jenrick could have visited
Handsworth to listen to residents; he chose to pass through and judge them
based on the colour of their skin. Instead of getting to know our nation of
neighbours, he chose racism. The Tories, Reform and Labour want to divide us.
The Greens say: enough.”
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