Jenrick says no regrets over Handsworth 'worst integrated' comment
Robert Jenrick says lack of integration leads to dark place
(about 4 hours later)
Shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick says he does not regret remarks he made in March about the Handsworth area of Birmingham, in which he called it "one of the worst-integrated places" he had ever been to.
Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick has told the BBC "at the extreme levels, a lack of integration leads us into a very dark place as a country", as he explained remarks he made at a dinner in the Spring which were secretly recorded.
In a recording reportedly made during a dinner and published by the Guardian, Jenrick said he had not seen "another white face" in the hour-and-a-half he spent in Handsworth filming a video about litter.
In an extract of his speech in March, published by The Guardian, Jenrick said the Handsworth area of Birmingham was "one of the worst-integrated places" he had ever been to.
Jenrick said on Tuesday he had no regrets about the language he used and would not "shy away" from issues of integration.
He also said he had spent an hour-and-a-half there and not seen "another white face" during his visit, adding: "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."
The Labour West Midlands mayor Richard Parker said he believed Jenrick's comments were racist - something Jenrick strongly rejected - while Labour Party chair Anna Turley said they reduced people "to the colour of their skin".
The mayor of the West Midlands, Labour's Richard Parker, said he believed the remarks were racist, something Jenrick strongly rejected.
The authenticity of the recording at the Aldridge-Brownhills Conservative Association is not disputed by Jenrick's team.
"He's set out intentionally to draw on a particular issue - people's colour - to identify the point he wanted to make," Parker said.
In the recording, he goes on to say: "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 shows a lack of respect and understanding for those communities. I doubt whether or not if he went to a largely white community anywhere in the West Midlands he'd be making a comment similar to what he made about Handsworth."
"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."
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch backed Jenrick and in a BBC interview the shadow justice secretary said his remarks had been prescient.
Asked on BBC Radio 5 Live on Tuesday whether he regretted the comments made in the recording, Jenrick said: "No, not at all, and I won't shy away from these issues."
Jenrick said: "There are numerous parts of our country now where the same story is happening, and at the extreme levels, a lack of integration leads us into a very dark place as a country.
He said he brought up skin colour "because it's incredibly important we have a fully integrated society".
"We're here in Manchester today, a week on from a terrible terrorist attack where a man who lived in our country for 30 years clearly wasn't well integrated, clearly didn't share British values because he went on to murder British Jews."
"It's a very dangerous place if we have a country where people are living in ghettoised communities, where people are not living together side-by-side in harmonious communities.
The chair of the Labour Party, Anna Turley, argued the initial remarks reduced people "to the colour of their skin".
"We've seen the damage that can do in our society," he said.
Handsworth's Independent MP Ayoub Khan said the remarks were "not only wildly false but also incredibly irresponsible".
"We've had major failures of integration in this country for my whole lifetime.
"We've got to fix it, and that's the comment I was making in Birmingham the other day."
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said she did not know the context of the recording but that Jenrick may have been "making an observation" about his visit to the area.
"I wasn't there so I can't say how many faces he saw, but the point is that there are many people in our country who are not integrating," she said.
Parker said he was "appalled" and "disgusted" by Jenrick's comments made in the recording.
Asked if he believed the remarks were racist, he told BBC Radio WM: "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."
His comments were echoed by Turley, who said in his remarks, Jenrick "reduces people to the colour of their skin and judges his own level of comfort by whether there are other white faces around".
Integration in communities has been a big theme at the Conservative conference this week, where the party has been discussing how to respond to the threat posed by Nigel Farage's Reform UK.
Integration in communities has been a big theme at the Conservative conference this week, where the party has been discussing how to respond to the threat posed by Nigel Farage's Reform UK.
In an interview with the BBC to coincide with the conference, Badenoch said the government must do more to promote integration.
Asked if there had been a generational failure of immigrant communities to properly integrate, Badenoch said: "No, I don't think that there's been a generational failure.
Commenting on Jenrick's comments earlier, shadow energy secretary Claire Coutinho said on X: "We're a majority white country".
"I think that we are a successful multi-racial country, but I can see that things are fragmenting."
She added: "If you walk through an area and don't see a single white face, it is a sign that integration has failed."
She added: "I don't want us to become a multicultural country where different people have different communities, no shared values, fragmented loyalties.
Meanwhile, when asked about the comments, shadow housing secretary James Cleverly told 5 Live that "segregated communities living close to each other but not mixing with each other is not healthy".
"I think that it is getting harder to integrate people because immigration has been too high.
But public figures from within the region have disputed Jenrick's comments, with former Conversative mayor of the West Midlands Andy Street telling BBC Newsnight Jenrick was "wrong".
"This is one of the things which I have acknowledged my party got wrong. It was not deliberate."
Street, who described Handsworth as "a very integrated place". also rejected Jenrick's recorded comment that Handsworth was "the closest I've come to a slum in this country".
Handsworth's Independent MP Ayoub Khan said Jenrick's remarks were "not only wildly false but also incredibly irresponsible".
In a letter to Jenrick, the Bishop of Birmingham, Dr Michael Volland said the comments had the potential to "stir up division" and "feed into a harmful narrative that provides fuel for a fire of toxic nationalism".
On the ground, reaction to the story has been mixed. On Tuesday morning, the BBC spoke to a number of Handsworth residents who expressed different perspectives about Jenrick's comments.
Rani Rawji, who works for a business improvement district in the area, said it had Christians, Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus working, living and shopping happily together.
She said: "Everybody's happy. We don't seem to have an issue."
However, Mariaj Khan agreed with the description of the area as a slum and said he was not offended by the MP's comments because he felt they were true.
Mr Khan said he only saw Asian and black people, adding: "I never saw a white face around here."
He said that there were white people in the area but they tended not to be British.
