The historian David Starkey has claimed Rishi Sunak has not engaged with the coronation because he is “not fully grounded in our culture”.
Speaking to GB News on Thursday, Starkey, who has been accused of making racist remarks in the past, was discussing a perceived lack of interest in King Charles’s coronation from the government. A minority of MPs have been invited to the ceremony on Saturday, according to reports.
The host, journalist and commentator Andrew Pierce, put it to Starkey that the prime minister had been “detached, or at least semi-detached, from this coronation”.
Sitting outside Buckingham Palace, Starkey replied: “Invisible. I think one of the reasons that I think a lot has gone wrong, for example, why parliament has not been properly represented at the coronation of a parliamentary monarchy, is because the government isn’t interested in the constitution.
“The prime minister, the man of immense talent, of extraordinary skill, but really, not fully grounded in our culture,” he continued.
“I know that’s a difficult and controversial thing to say, but I think it’s true. And, again, this coronation is going to highlight far too much our differences rather than what unites us.”
Asked if he was speaking “in terms of religion”, the 78-year-old agreed: “In terms of religion.”
Charles is the head of the Church of England, while Sunak is Hindu.
The prime minister, who was born in Southampton to African-born Hindu parents of Indian Punjabi descent, will be reading a passage from the Bible during the coronation.
It was reported in February that around 80 MPs and peers are invited to the coronation. There are 650 MPs in the UK. It was reported that the slimmed-down figure had caused uproar among the parliamentarians. In 1953, many more MPs were invited to the late Queen’s coronation.
GB News deleted a tweet with Starkey’s remarks within an hour but it was swiftly screen-grabbed and shared by critics on Twitter.
In 2020, Starkey told the rightwing commentator Darren Grimes that “slavery was not genocide, otherwise there wouldn’t be so many damn blacks in Africa or in Britain would there? You know, an awful lot of them survived.”
The former chancellor Sajid Javid described those comments as racist and “a reminder of the appalling views that still exist” in Britain, while the historian David Olusoga said they were “truly disgusting”.
The major publishing house HarperCollins UK said it would not be publishing any further books by Starkey.
According to reports at the time Starkey apologised “unreservedly” for the offence his “deplorably inflammatory” words had caused, saying he had spoken “with awful clumsiness”.
Starkey, a Fitzwilliam alumnus, was dropped from a fundraising campaign for the college in 2015 after complaints from staff and students that he was “aggressively racist”.
Appearing on BBC Newsnight after the summer riots of 2011, Starkey said: “A substantial amount of the chavs have become black. The whites have become black; a particular sort of violent destructive, nihilistic gangster culture has become the fashion.”
He also gave an interview to the Telegraph in which he said statistics “appeared” to show a black propensity to violence.
Earlier this month, Starkey declared he had “uncancelled” himself in an interview with the mainstream political magazine the Spectator, which sells in excess of 100,000 copies each week.
• This article was amended on 5 May 2023 to remove a reference to the number of MPs invited to the 1953 coronation.
