Labour MP Rupa Huq’s shocking comments about Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng at a Labour Party Conference fringe meeting left me angry and disappointed.
She was recorded as saying: “He’s superficially, he’s, a black man but again he’s got more in common... he went to Eton, he went to a very expensive prep school, all the way through top schools in the country.
“If you hear him on the Today programme you wouldn’t know he’s black.” Just imagine if a white MP had said that?
Huq is not a stupid woman – according to her online profile, she herself went to independent girls’ schools and studied at Cambridge. She’s had a very successful teaching, writing and media career, so what on earth compelled her to make such comments about another ethnic minority politician?
As an Asian woman myself, I was overjoyed to see a black man appointed as Chancellor. Seeing more people of colour in positions of power and influence sends a great message to the rest of us in society. It says that the world is changing.
I may not relate to Kwasi Kwarteng’s elite education (or some of his more recent decisions!), but I do relate to him being a person of colour trying to get a “seat at the table”. I’m quite sure Huq’s intentions weren’t to cause upset or harm, but more to impress her audience. What did she even mean by saying that the new Chancellor is superficially black? Is she implying that because he was bright and his parents invested in his education and he went to some elite learning establishments, somehow these do not make him black?
Is she implying that black people can only call themselves black if socio-economically and politically they are the complete opposite of Kwarteng?
Would she see me as an Asian woman? I have educated myself out of poverty, had big aspirations, married a white man, live in a nice middle-class suburb in a detached house, talk without a Pakistani accent and hardly ever wear traditional clothing.
I’m afraid Huq is what’s wrong with the Labour Party at the moment. It’s stuck in a time warp where they are still focussing on attacking people for having done well in life, having had a better start or having some inherent privileges.
Of course we need to ensure that there is a much better level playing field for all in society. But attacking privilege just makes the Labour party look bitter and angry.
And do they think that privilege prevents people from suffering like the rest of us from racism, alcoholism, sexism, loneliness, mental health breakdowns? We are all the same under our skins.
Huq has rightly been suspended from her post pending an investigation, and Labour leader Keir Starmer has called her comments “racist”.
She has since apologised “wholeheartedly”.
Ms Huq, may I offer you some words of wisdom from my humble life experience: always attack the policies, not the person.
That way you can really show off your intellectual credentials.
