The comedian Trevor Noah has said he did not claim “the entire UK is racist” after a row over his skit about Rishi Sunak’s appointment as the UK prime minister.
Noah said on the US news programme The Daily Show earlier this week that there had been a “backlash” over Sunak, comments that were widely criticised in the UK. The former chancellor Sajid Javid said Noah had been “simply wrong”.
The comedian, however, has now defended his segment, saying he was reacting to racists: “That’s why I said ‘some people’.”
Sunak, who was born in Hampshire to Indian parents, became the UK’s first British-Asian prime minister on Tuesday, and the first Hindu to assume the role.
In the original comments on the US programme, Noah – who is South African and grew up during apartheid – said: “You hear a lot of the people saying: ‘Oh, they’re taking over, now the Indians are going to take over Great Britain and what’s next?’
“And I always find myself going:" ‘So what? What are you afraid of? I think it’s because the quiet part that a lot of people don’t realise what they’re saying is: ‘We don’t want these people who were previously oppressed to get into power because then they may do to us what we did to them.’”
During his skit, Noah played a clip from LBC radio broadcast during the Conservative leadership race a week ago, when a caller falsely claimed Sunak was “not even British”.
Javid tweeted in response that Noah’s comments were “so wrong” and that Britain “is the most successful multiracial democracy on earth and proud of this historic achievement”.
The former Tory leadership contender Rory Stewart said Noah’s remarks were “completely bizarre” and an example of “lazy stereotyping”.
Downing Street said on Thursday that Sunak did not believe Britain was a racist country.
The presenter Piers Morgan also tweeted that US media was “falsely portraying Britain as a racist country”.
Noah responded on Friday evening, saying: “C’mon Piers, you’re smarter than that.
“I wasn’t saying ‘the entire UK is racist’, I was responding to the racists who don’t want Rishi as PM because of his race. That’s why I said ‘some people’.”
Noah has long spoken about racial inequality. He published a book in 2017 entitled Born a Crime, a reference to the fact he was born in South Africa to a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother at a time when such a relationship was punishable by imprisonment.
He began his career in South Africa, releasing a string of standup specials and hosting a late-night talk show before relocating to the US in 2011.
He has hosted The Daily Show, a late-night talk and satirical news programme, since 2015, but announced last month that he would be standing down.
