Labour panic over Starmer 'blind spot on race' after Kemi Badenoch win

Keir Starmer is facing a backlash over a 'blind spot' on race after Kemi Badenoch was elected as Tory leader.

Senior Labour figures have raised alarm that the lack of black staff members at the heart of government is a 'serious embarrassment'.

The Guardian reported the concerns from a frontbencher who bemoaned that the party is 'nowhere near electing a woman leader or a black leader'.

Ms Badenoch took the Conservative crown on Saturday, becoming the first black leader of a major UK political party.

Labour figures including Sir Keir and Foreign Secretary David Lammy hailed Ms Badenoch's breakthrough. 

However, she has played down the significance, insisting that all jobs should be on merit. 

According to the Guardian, there have been furious messages on a WhatsApp group for Labour MPs of colour about the lack of representation at the top of government.

One senior Labour frontbencher apparently said they struggled to think of any senior black advisers in Sir Keir's team, despite the presence of deputy chief of staff Vidhya Alakeson and policy adviser Rav Athwal.

No10 sources insisted there was strong representation at the top of government, including ministers.  

In a BBC interview yesterday Ms Badenoch was asked whether she was pleased people were noting the achievement of being the first black leader of a major UK political party.

She said: 'I think that the best thing will be when we get to a point where the colour of your skin is no more remarkable than the colour of your eyes or the colour of your hair. 

'We live in a multi-racial country. That's great but we have to make sure it doesn't become something divisive...'

She added: 'What I don't want is for that to be the thing that ends up being talked about.'

Turning her fire on Rachel Reeves, Ms Badenoch suggested becoming first woman Chancellor mattered less than the three Tory female leaders who had become Prime Minister.

'I find it astonishing that Rachel Reeves keeps talking about how she's the first female chancellor which in my view is a very very low glass ceiling in the Labour Party that she may have smashed – nowhere near as significant as what other women in this country have achieved,' she said. 

Meanwhile, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has condemned an 'appalling' tweet about Ms Badenoch reposted by a Labour MP.

Dawn Butler appeared to share a tweet describing Ms Badenoch as a 'member of white supremacy's black collaborator class'.

Ms Butler swiftly deleted her retweet from Nigerian-British author Nels Abbey, which responded to the prospect of Ms Badenoch becoming Tory leader by describing 'Badenochism' as 'white supremacy in blackface'.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said she had not seen the post, but when read excerpts from it, she told LBC: 'I clearly strongly disagree with that.'

Ms Butler has been strongly criticised by Conservative figures, with several calling for her to lose the Labour whip.

Ben Obese-Jecty, who was elected as MP for Huntingdon in July, said Ms Butler was 'not alone on the Government benches in holding this view of Kemi'.

He said: 'This will be a test to see whether Keir Starmer removes the whip, or effectively condones Butler's abhorrent approval of this smear.'

The Home Secretary was pressed on why no action had been taken against Ms Butler.

She said: 'As I said, I haven't seen the post and I think those sorts of issues around party issues, those are always ones for the whip.'

Asked whether the words in the post had a 'racist sentiment', Ms Cooper said: 'The words that you have read out are clearly appalling and I would strongly disagree with them.

'So, I haven't seen the post. I don't know the circumstances around it but I think we should congratulate Kemi Badenoch on her election.

'I will continue to disagree with her on all sorts of issues, but, nevertheless, I congratulate her on her election.'

Sir Keir has previously suspended the whip from Labour MPs in response to comments about senior black Conservative politicians.

In 2022, he suspended Rupa Huq from the party for describing then-chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng as 'superficially' black. Ms Huq apologised and had the whip restored six months later.

In later posts, Mr Abbey said his original comments had been 'clearly satirical' and 'intended as a sketch', but defended Ms Butler saying she 'may not welcome the ascendancy of an extremely right-wing reactionary black person'.