Ministers feared 'racist' label if they spoke about Covid spread

Ministers feared that Covid was spreading more rapidly among "non-compliant" communities but were worried they would be labelled “racist” if they highlighted the issue, leaked messages show.

Matt Hancock was told by a Cabinet colleague that there could be “race riots” if he locked down “white working-class” areas when the virus was spreading fastest in neighbouring communities who were not following rules restricting social gatherings.

One Tory MP told the prime minister that restrictions were fuelling “race relation issues” because his constituency of Shipley had been included in a local lockdown aimed at Bradford “even though there are barely any cases in my constituency”.

Leaked WhatsApp messages reveal concerns that the Government was “very white” and attempts were made to use ministers including Kemi Badenoch, Priti Patel and Nadhim Zahawi to make the case on issues that affected black and Asian communities.

One of the biggest concerns surrounding race was the implementation of local lockdowns in the summer of 2020, when the virus was feared to be spreading in largely deprived, densely populated areas with large Asian populations living in intergenerational households.

The health secretary had worried that he would appear “racist” for only locking down communities that were seeing a surge in coronavirus levels while neighbouring towns had lower numbers.

Warning of 'non-compliance'

Nadine Dorries, then a minister in the Department of Health, said: “We can’t put whole towns and villages with extremely low R rates in lockdown (our voters) and deprive those people of work and family bcse [because] of the behaviour of non-compliant communities.”

The health minister, who appears to be commenting to her boss on the side-lines of a larger online meeting on Aug 20, reminded him of the “race riots” in Burnley in the early 2000s.

She warned that the “white working class” ward of Colne, in Pendle, would be like a “tinder box” if its 18 pubs closed because of “noncompliance” in the Pakistani community in Nelson next door.

National lockdown had come to an end on July 4 and been replaced by targeted local measures in areas with high prevalence.

Mr Hancock had already attempted to dodge public questions about whether Eid had played a part in introducing last-minute restrictions in areas of the north-west announced the night before the festival began.

On Aug 20, ministers were considering fresh interventions in Oldham, Pendle, and Blackburn as the epidemiological data showed that cases were getting out of control in certain areas.

Ms Dorries said that the arguments that they were having with local leaders about targeting specific wards had become “political”, because in effect it would mean locking down areas which were more likely to vote Labour.

In 2019 the Conservative party had made inroads into traditional Labour-voting communities in the north winning swathes of so-called “red wall” seats.

At the time of the conversation, Pendle and other areas in the north west were already under local restrictions which banned people from socialising with other households in private homes and gardens.

The following day, the Government announced that swathes of Oldham, Pendle and Blackburn would be subject to tighter restrictions.

People in seven wards covering Nelson and Brierley were banned from socialising with anyone outside of their household and asked to avoid public transport for all but essential travel.

The number allowed to attend weddings and funerals was restricted to 20 and restaurants were told to operate a reservation system for a maximum of six people.

Colne escaped the additional restrictions in the wake of Ms Dorries' warning.

The decision to target those restrictions at an individual ward level came after warnings from Philip Davies, the Tory MP for Shipley, that blanket local restrictions had been impacting on race relations, an issue he raised with the prime minister:

The Bradford lockdown which Mr Davies was referring to had been imposed the evening before Eid, effectively cancelling the festival for thousands of Muslims.

Though the announcement of the lockdown on parts of West Yorkshire, Greater Manchester and East Lancashire was made at the 11th hour, Mr Hancock had been aware that there was a looming issue for at least 10 days.

Dido Harding, who led the Government’s test and trace programme, told him:

On June 30, a lockdown was announced had forced the communities to cancel their celebrations at the last moment.

Mr Hancock publicly denied that Eid had played a part in decisions about what restrictions to impose.

The following morning, he went on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, and when asked if it was a factor he replied: "No – my heart goes out to the Muslim communities in these areas because I know how important the Eid celebrations are."

Later that day, a reporter at the Telegraph asked a similar question, and Mr Hancock was adamant that they should not say that Eid had had an impact:

The series of top-level ministerial conversations leaked to the Telegraph shows race relations was a frequent issue.

On June 2, a report by NHS England had found that people of black, Asian and minority ethnic [BAME] origin were at higher risk of death from coronavirus than white people.

Lord Bethell, who at the time was a health minister, asked four days later what they were doing to deal with the issues.

He said that “Kemi is great”, apparently in reference to Kemi Badenoch, who is of Nigerian descent, but noted that as a group of politicians “we are very white”:

Ten days later an urgent question on what was being done to address the disproportionate effect on certain communities. Ms Badenoch, the equalities minister, was asked to answer it, messages between Mr Hancock’s “Top Team” of advisers and civil servants show.

It appears that Allan Nixon, Mr Hancock’s parliamentary special adviser, suggested warning Ms Badenoch that if she did not answer the question her future appearances at the Despatch Box in the House of Commons would be at risk. It was suggested that Jo Churchill, a health minister, was the alternative to answer the question:

What was said to Ms Badenoch remains unclear, but she pushed back against the suggestion, conversations later that day reveal:

It wasn’t the last time that Cabinet ministers from ethnic minority backgrounds were relied upon to spread coronavirus messaging to certain communities. Ms Patel’s offer of help on “BAME & vaccine” was readily accepted and in June 2021 Boris Johnson’s office asked Iraq-born Mr Zahawi to take on a coronavirus press conference. Mr Hancock warned Damon Poole, his media special adviser, that it could appear “patronising”:

Despite their interventions, Lord Bethell was concerned that they were still failing on the messaging. He noted that politicians like Ms Dorries were reaching out to the affected communities, but they were “not the right people”. He suggested that they were appealing to the white middle classes who shop in Waitrose and they should be looking to appeal to people who listen to Kiss FM, a dance-music station. Kiss FM’s largely urban demographic is 15 to 34-year-olds:

Lord Bethell later suggested that they need a “counter extremist academic” or “one of the agencies that work on Prevent” to recruit voices who could talk to Muslim communities that “don’t trust royal colleges”.