PA Media
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 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.
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 mayor of the West Midlands, Labour’s Richard Parker, said he believed the remarks were racist, something Jenrick strongly rejected.
“He’s set out intentionally to draw on a particular issue – people’s colour – to identify the point he wanted to make,” Parker said.
“It shows a lack of respec
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