Kemi Badenoch’s fans have been exchanging 'racist' messages including about Rishi Sunak in a campaign WhatsApp group for her Tory grassroot supporters, the Mirror has learned.
A former Conservative MP who is part of the chat assured members the Tory leadership hopeful, who is down to the final three candidates, “reads everything, including this”.
Among the messages, one person questioned Mr Sunak’s choice to call the election when he did before adding: “It’s not racist to say he wasn’t a true Brit - he was born here yes but didn’t have the hereditary ancestral history of the majority of British people.” Another member of the chat said that they went “to an area in London today. Felt like I was on holiday. Can’t say that though. It’s racism”.
Another person insinuated that Jamaican people coming to London were trying to stay beyond their holiday visas, and were illiterate. In one WhatsApp, they said that when they were part of “cabin crew it was a common occurrence on flights from Kingston in Jamaica being asked for help filling in landing cards because they were illiterate and claiming they were taking a long haul holiday to London”.
One mum in the conversation said her “tall blonde blue-eyed son [dated] a girl with British Pakistani heritage”, but “it started to get serious and the cultural differences crept in [...] she wanted total submission to her culture. This is what happens when we create cultural ghettos”.
Another message suggested white men could not get jobs as bus drivers as the recruitment process is biased towards non-white people. The member said they were aware “white male big goods drivers find it impossible to get jobs as bus drivers”, adding: “This is not a rant about ethnic minorities getting the work which is fine but the recruitment policy may be bias the other way”.
Ms Badenoch is not part of the WhatsApp chat, though one member of the group said that her team “very kindly reached out to me” regarding summaries of the chat. “Everything in this chat is going somewhere,” they said, including a “summarised version of every policy suggestion that’s been made in this chat the team can refer to”. And former Tory MP Rachel Maclean, who is backing Ms Badenoch to replace Mr Sunak, said the Tory leadership candidate “reads everything, including this”.
A Westminster source told the Mirror: “Kemi should think long and hard about the discussions her team are allowing to happen among her supporters. That any of these people should continue to represent or campaign for Kemi should be beyond question. This could prove to be a test for Badenoch.”
A spokesman from Ms Badenoch's campaign said: "This is a WhatsApp community of people who want the Conservatives to elect the first black female leader of a political party in Britain's history."