Kemi Badenoch told GMB:
“We need to bring back equality under the law. What Nigel Farage is doing is reinforcing the difference. I have said that we need to find what we have in common, not what separates us. I don’t want to hear about black lives matter. I don’t want to hear about white lives matter. We all matter.
Enough of this nonsense where we keep separating everybody and splitting people into different groups. We are descending into tribalism. I do not want that. It is why I say that we should be a multi-racial country, not a multicultural country. Let’s have one shared culture, British culture.
How the police treat everyone should not matter depending on the colour of their skin. And we shouldn’t pretend that racism is something that only happens to ethnic minorities. It happens to everybody, black or white. What I do not like is seeing Nigel Farage jump on this issue when he doesn’t do any work.
He doesn’t turn up to parliament. He doesn’t take things seriously, but he sees this as an opportunity for him to grandstand. I am not grandstanding. I will say that a lot more needs to be done.
Policing is operationally independent. I think we need to look a bit more at what is going on in terms of how the police are conducting themselves. There are many hundreds of thousands of great police officers out there. I think we should be specific about what these officers did, there are many good police officers who help people of all colors and all religions every single day.”
Badenoch added: “Nigel Farage is taking sides. I’m not taking sides. I’m saying enough of this. We need to stop this racialising of our society. We are multi-racial, yes, but we need to stop using race as a way of defining laws, as a way of hiring people. Let’s treat everyone equally. No two-tier policing. No believing that racism only happens to ethnic minorities. It happens to everyone.” A furious attack on Farage…
Statement by Paul Dacre, Editor-in-Chief of Associated Newspapers Limited, following Harry’s loss in court today:
“Prince Harry wrote a sad book which boasted about his killing of 25 Taliban, his drug-taking and, in cringe-making detail, how he lost his virginity. There isn’t a laundry in the cosmos big enough to wash all the dirty linen he has aired about his own family. For him, to complain about HIS privacy being invaded takes, not just the biscuit, but the whole tin. Poor Harry. I feel sorry for the way a confused and angry young man has been drawn into this case. The bitter irony is that his mother, Diana, liked the Mail. We were her paper. We took her side in her acrimonious break up with Charles. She and I would speak and meet. The Mail’s superb royal reporter was her friend and confidante. The truth is that this trumped-up action – which has cost well over £50 million and wasted a huge amount of valuable court time – should never have been brought to trial. That it did, raises profoundly disturbing questions about the conduct of elements of the legal profession. Today’s verdict is not just a victory for Associated’s magnificent journalists – several of whom have had a terrible toll imposed on their health and lives – but a free press generally. Make no mistake. This was a conspiracy, supported by Hacked Off, to destroy a paper. Financed by the orgy-loving, racist Max Mosley and involving the actor Hugh Grant, it was also a sinister bid to resuscitate Leveson Two and impose statutory regulation on the press which, even now, is rearing its ugly head in Labour’s Media Green Paper.”