A SENIOR Conservative MP has been accused of racism after it was revealed he had complained of not seeing “another white face” during a visit to a diverse community in a major English city.
Robert Jenrick, widely tipped as a potential future Tory leader, was recorded saying that Handsworth in Birmingham was “as close as I’ve come to a slum in this country”.
The community is 9% white, 25% Pakistani, 23% Indian and 10% Bangladeshi, according to data from the Office for National Statistics.
A recording of a speech he gave to the Aldridge-Brownhills Conservative Association on March 14. obtained by The Guardian, revealed that Jenrick said: “I went to Handsworth in Birmingham the other day to do a video on litter and it was absolutely appalling.
“It’s as close as I’ve come to a slum in this country. But the other thing I noticed there was that it was one of the worst integrated places I’ve ever been to. In fact, in the hour and a half I was filming news there I didn’t see another white face.
“That’s not the kind of country I want to live in. I want to live in a country where people are properly integrated. It’s not about the colour of your skin or your faith, of course it isn’t. But I want people to be living alongside each other, not parallel lives. That’s not the right way we want to live as a country.”
'Is he suggesting that the colour of your skin makes you less British than someone else?' 'I think he has a lot of explaining to do.'@bphillipsonMP reacts to a leaked recording of Robert Jenrick complaining about not seeing 'another white face' in a Birmingham neighbourhood. pic.twitter.com/Kmwzfd4Ytm
— LBC (@LBC) October 7, 2025
His comments have been met with fury, with local MP Ayoub Khan telling The Guardian: “The claims made by the shadow justice secretary are not only wildly false but also incredibly irresponsible. He has misrepresented a storied and diverse community, awkwardly distorting the product of an all-out bin strike to fit his culture-warrior narrative filled with far-right cliches.
“What could be seen on the streets that day […] was not the result of some failure of multiculturalism. It is the result of 14 years of sustained austerity measures under the Tory governments that he so loyally served, combined with continued neglect and mismanagement by the Labour-run council.”
West Midlands Mayor Richard Parker told BBC Radio WM he found the comments racist.
“I do. Because he’s set out intentionally to draw on a particular issue – people’s colour – to identify the point he wanted to make,” he said.
Labour Party chairwoman Anna Turley said: “This weekend Kemi Badenoch said she stood against a politics that ‘reduces people to categories and then pits them against each other’.
“Robert Jenrick in his leaked comments reduces people to the colour of their skin and judges his own level of comfort by whether there are other white faces around.
“His comments clearly cross a red line that his leader has rightly laid down.”
Andy Street, the Conservative former mayor of the West Midlands, said Jenrick was “wrong” in his comments about Handsworth.
He told BBC Newsnight: “Putting it bluntly, Robert is wrong. It’s a place I know very well, Handsworth, it’s come a hell of a long way in the 40 years since the last civil disturbances there and it’s actually a very integrated place.”
He added: “You see incredible hope, optimism and people taking part in education which is based around British values and thinking how they can make a contribution to the future of their region, their city and their area. That is not a definition of a slum.”
The Tories have defended the shadow justice secretary’s comments, with Badenoch saying they could have been an “observation”.
'Is he suggesting that the colour of your skin makes you less British than someone else?' 'I think he has a lot of explaining to do.'@bphillipsonMP reacts to a leaked recording of Robert Jenrick complaining about not seeing 'another white face' in a Birmingham neighbourhood. pic.twitter.com/Kmwzfd4Ytm
— LBC (@LBC) October 7, 2025
She told BBC Breakfast: “These are recordings out of context. I don’t know what was being discussed before he said that.
“But in and of itself, it’s a factual statement. If he said he didn’t see another white face, he might have been making an observation. There’s nothing wrong with making observations.
“But what he and I both agree with is that there are not enough people integrating. There are many people who are creating separate communities.”
She added: “I heard that one of the MPs of that area was accusing him of racism. I completely disagree with that. I want to make that very clear.”
Badenoch went on to attack Khan, the Independent Alliance MP for Birmingham Perry Barr, accusing him of having “very, very divisive politics”.
Jenrick himself has doubled down, saying he would not apologise for them. He told BBC 5 Live: “won’t shy away from these issues.”
'Is he suggesting that the colour of your skin makes you less British than someone else?' 'I think he has a lot of explaining to do.'@bphillipsonMP reacts to a leaked recording of Robert Jenrick complaining about not seeing 'another white face' in a Birmingham neighbourhood. pic.twitter.com/Kmwzfd4Ytm
— LBC (@LBC) October 7, 2025
He said he had brought up skin colour “because it’s incredibly important that we have a fully integrated society regardless of the colour of their skin or the faith that they abide by”.
Jenrick has previously complained about the decline of the white British population in some parts of England, telling Sky News in May that “if you look at parts of Dagenham [in east London], the white British population has reduced by 50% in the last 25 years”.
When pressed on why this mattered, Jenrick responded: “It’s not about the colour of someone’s skin.”
