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Wes Streeting has accused the Reform UK MP Sarah Pochin of making “racist” remarks after she said seeing adverts full of black and Asian people “drives her mad”.
The health secretary said Pochin was “only sorry she’s been caught and called out”, adding she had “said the quiet bit loud” as he warned of a return to “1970s, 1980s-style racism”.
Streeting’s comments went further than Labour’s official remarks from the party chair, Anna Turley, who on Saturday night condemned Pochin’s remarks and said Reform were “more interested in dividing our country than uniting it”, but stopped short of calling the comments racist.
On Friday, Pochin, who is Reform UK’s MP for Runcorn and Helsby, complained that “every advert” seemed to feature “black and Asian people”, as she responded to a viewer on TalkTV who had complained about the demographics of advertising.
Pochin said the viewer was “absolutely right”, adding “it doesn’t reflect our society and I feel that your average white person, average white family is … not represented any more”, blaming the “woke liberati” in the “arty-farty world”.
“It might be fine inside the M25,” she added, “but it’s definitely not representative of the rest of the country.”
She later apologised, saying her comments were “phrased poorly” and she had not intended to cause offence. “The point I was trying to make is that the British advertising agency world has gone DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] mad and many adverts are now unrepresentative of British society as a whole.
“I will endeavour to ensure my language is more accurate going forward.”
Streeting hardened Labour’s attack on Reform, as he told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg show he had spent time in a London secondary school on Friday, listening to boys describe racist abuse in “one of the most diverse cities on Earth”.
“What they are describing, and what we have seen on our streets in recent weeks and months is a return of [the] 1970s, 1980s-style racism I thought we had left in the history books.
“The only way we are going to defeat this racism is to call it out and confront it for what it is, and for the decent majority of this country, to stand against it, as we have always done. I think what [Pochin] said was a disgrace. I think it was racist.”
He accused Reform of believing “our flag only belongs to some of us, who look like me, not all of us who have built this country and its success”, and that Britain remained the “most successful multifaith democracy in the world”.
Labour has called on Nigel Farage, the leader of Reform UK, to denounce Pochin’s comments. Zia Yusuf, head of policy for Reform UK, told Sky News it was right that Pochin apologised but added that people must be able to talk about representation in advertising.
Yusuf said: “I know Sarah very well. I was instrumental in her selection as a candidate, worked very hard to get her elected, and I’m extremely glad that I did.
“I consider her a close friend and she’s a great MP for Runcorn. She did say those words and she has apologised, saying it was a poorly phrased thing to say, but you’ve got to put that into context.”
Chris Philp, the Conservative shadow home secretary, refused to class Pochin’s remarks as racist, as he told the BBC: “It’s not language I would have used … but we should acknowledge the public do have legitimate concerns about large-scale immigration and discussing that is certainly not racist.”
A Labour party spokesperson responded saying it was “shameful that Chris Philp failed to condemn Sarah Pochin’s racist comments six times in a row. It just goes to show how far the Tory party has fallen.”
