'Truly disgusting': LBC presenter's comments to black panellist on TV show condemned by Labour MP
A Labour MP has criticised LBC presenter Nick Ferrari for asking a black panellist on a TV show why she stayed in the UK when she was so critical of the country.
Chi Onwurah, MP for Newcastle Central, described the comments, made by Ferrari to author Afua Hirsch on Sky News panel debate show The Pledge in 2018, as “truly disgusting”.
The LBC presenter was responding on the show after Hirsch hosted a segment about memorials for “problematic figures” being taken down across the world.
Hirsch re-uploaded the clip on Tuesday in the wake of the statue of slave trader Edward Colston being pulled down in Bristol during protests on Sunday.
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After viewing the video, Onwurah, shadow minister for digital, science and technology, tweeted: “Truly disgusting. But Afua Hirsch responds with such grace.”
Truly disgusting. But Afua Hirsch responds with such grace. https://t.co/IJicymtRxO
— chi onwurah (@ChiOnwurah) June 9, 2020
In the two-minute clip, Hirsch mentions Bristol’s Colston Hall music venue and goes on to question whether the monuments of wartime prime minister Winston Churchill and imperialist Cecil Rhodes should stay up.
She added that she was not necessarily saying they should be brought down but added a debate needed to happen considering their troubled pasts.
In response, Ferrari said: “Why do you stay in this country?
“If you take such offence when you see Nelson’s Column, if you take such offence when you hear Winston Churchill’s name?
“I would argue in the unlikely event that anybody wanted to have a poll, probably 80 to 90% of people would say Winston Churchill did a good thing.
Read more: Anti-racism campaigners to target Nelson's Column next
“I’m delighted that I see you each Thursday... but if it offends you so much, how do you manage to stay here?”
Hirsch posted the video on Tuesday, with the caption: “In a former life, when I thought you cd politely persuade people not to be racist
“Their response? ‘If you don't like it here, LEAVE’. Which I'm yet to hear said to a white British person
“Racism is telling black people who have a critique of their own country, they should leave.”
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