Britain’s governing Conservative Party was under pressure Tuesday to return more than 10 million pounds to a donor who reportedly said that Diane Abbott, a prominent lawmaker, “should be shot,” and that looking at her made him “want to hate all Black women.”
According to an investigation by The Guardian newspaper, Frank Hester, a health care technology entrepreneur, made the comments in 2019, at a meeting held at the offices of his company, The Phoenix Partnership. He has apologized but has not confirmed the Guardian’s account of what he said.
Mr. Hester said on Monday that he “accepts that he was rude about Diane Abbot in a private meeting several years ago but his criticism had nothing to do with her gender nor color of skin,” in a statement released by his firm that misspelled her last name.
The statement added that he had called Ms. Abbott twice “to try to apologize directly for the hurt he has caused her, and is deeply sorry for his remarks,” and that he wished “to make it clear that he regards racism as a poison which has no place in public life.”
According to the Guardian, Mr. Hester said in the meeting: “It’s like trying not to be racist but you see Diane Abbott on the TV and you’re just like, I hate, you just want to hate all Black women because she’s there, and I don’t hate all Black women at all, but I think she should be shot.”
The first Black woman to be elected to Parliament, Ms. Abbott, 70, is a prominent figure in British politics and spoke on home affairs issues for the opposition Labour Party under its previous leader, Jeremy Corbyn.
She was suspended from the Labour Party in Parliament last year pending an investigation into a letter she wrote to a newspaper calling to distinguish racism against Black people from prejudice against other groups.
In a statement issued on Tuesday, Ms. Abbott described Mr. Hester’s reported comments about her as “frightening.”
“I am a single woman and that makes me vulnerable anyway. But to hear someone talking like this is worrying,” she said, adding that the fact that two members of Parliament “have been murdered in recent years makes talk like this all the more alarming.”
A Labour lawmaker, Jo Cox, was murdered in 2016 by a right-wing extremist, and David Amess, a Conservative lawmaker, was murdered in 2021 by a radical Islamist who opposed British airstrikes against the Islamic State.
Mr. Hester is the Conservative Party’s biggest donor and recently gave £5 million to the party, taking his total donations to £10 million in a year. With a general election expected later this year, the party on Tuesday was resisting pressure to return the cash.
One senior Conservative Party lawmaker and minister, Mel Stride, told broadcasters that Mr. Hester’s alleged comments “were clearly wrong” but people should “move on.”
That did little to allay the criticism from opposition politicians. Keir Starmer, the leader of the Labour Party, described the reported comments as “abhorrent,” and told the broadcaster ITV that Ms. Abbott had been a “trailblazer” who has “probably faced more abuse than any other politician over the years on a sustained basis.”
Mr. Hester appeared to be “pretending that what was said wasn’t racist or anything to do with the fact she’s a woman,” Mr. Starmer said, adding: “I don’t buy that, I’m afraid, and I think that it’s time the Tory Party called it out and returned the money.”
Earlier, speaking in Parliament, Wes Streeting, a senior Labour lawmaker, said that the reported comments had used “utterly revolting, racist and inciteful language, which has no place in our politics and public life.” Calling on the Conservatives to return donations from Mr. Hester, Mr. Streeting said that “if they have any integrity whatsoever, they will give every single penny piece back.”
Some Conservative lawmakers were also critical, including Kwasi Kwarteng, who served briefly as chancellor of the Exchequer in the short-lived government of the former prime minister, Liz Truss. Mr. Kwarteng told the BBC that the comments were “clearly racist and they are clearly sexist.”
Recent Conservative governments have featured some strikingly diverse cabinets and the party is led by Rishi Sunak, Britain’s first nonwhite prime minister.
But the party recently suspended one of its former lawmakers, Lee Anderson, after he claimed that “Islamists” had gained control of the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, a Labour politician. On Monday Mr. Anderson formally quit the Conservative Party and joined Reform U.K., the small right-wing successor to the Brexit Party, which was once led by Nigel Farage who campaigned for Britain to leave the European Union.
Critics have accused the Conservatives of tolerating anti-Muslim hatred. In a letter sent last month to the Conservatives, Zara Mohammed, secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said that “the Islamophobia in the party is institutional, tolerated by the leadership and seen as acceptable by great swathes of the party membership.”
On Tuesday afternoon, Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative business and trade secretary said that Mr. Hester’s comments, “as reported, were racist.”
“Abbott and I disagree on a lot. But the idea of linking criticism of her, to being a Black woman is appalling,” said Ms. Badenoch, who is also the equalities minister, in a social media post. “It’s never acceptable to conflate someone’s views with the color of their skin.”
But she added that she welcomed Mr. Hester’s apology and said there “needs to be space for forgiveness” when there was contrition over flippant remarks.
