Health Secretary Wes Streeting has condemned Reform UK MP Sarah Pochin for making what he described as racist remarks about diversity in advertising. Speaking on the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme, Streeting said Pochin's comments were a 'disgrace' and amounted to '1970s-, 1980s-style racism' that many thought had been consigned to history.
Pochin, the MP for Runcorn and Helsby, told TalkTV on Friday that seeing adverts featuring black and Asian people 'drives her mad' and that it 'doesn't reflect our society'. She later apologised, stating her comments were 'phrased poorly' and that she had not intended to cause offence. Streeting, however, said she was 'only sorry she's been caught and called out', accusing her of voicing the 'quiet part loud'.
Labour's initial response, from party chair Anna Turley, stopped short of explicitly calling the remarks racist, but Streeting's comments hardened the party's stance. He warned that the rise of such views reflected a broader societal problem, recalling conversations with London schoolboys who had described experiencing racist abuse.
Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey also condemned Pochin's remarks as 'racism, pure and simple', while Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp initially refused to label them racist, saying the public had 'legitimate concerns' about immigration. Philp later clarified on Times Radio that the remarks were indeed racist, prompting Labour to accuse him of failing to condemn them 'six times in a row'.
Reform UK's head of policy, Zia Yusuf, defended Pochin as a 'close friend' and a 'great MP', arguing that her apology should be accepted. Pochin herself appeared to double down on Sunday, responding to Streeting's criticism by linking to a clip of a past incident, accusing him of failing to speak out.
