LONDON (AP) — Britain’s Conservative government said Wednesday that the party does not plan to give back 10 million pounds ($12.8 million) it received in the past year from a donor who made comments about a Black lawmaker that have been condemned as racist.
The government is under pressure from some of its own lawmakers to return the donation from business executive Frank Hester. He reportedly said in a 2019 company meeting that Diane Abbott, Britain’s longest-serving Black legislator, made him “want to hate all Black women” and that she “should be shot.”
Hester, chief executive of healthcare software firm The Phoenix Partnership, is the Conservative Party’s biggest individual donor. His company has been paid more than 400 million pounds ($510 million) by the National Health Service and other government bodies since 2016.
After the comments were published by The Guardian newspaper, Hester acknowledged that he’d been “rude about Diane Abbott” but denied being racist. In a statement on social media, he said racism “is a poison that has no place in public life.”
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak initially criticized Hester’s comments — first reported Monday — as “unacceptable,” but it was almost 24 hours before the prime minister’s spokesman labeled the remarks racist.
Sunak told lawmakers in the House of Commons on Wednesday that “the alleged comments were wrong, they were racist.” He added that Hester had “rightly apologized for them, and that remorse should be accepted.”
Business Minister Kevin Hollinrake told broadcasters that the Tories would not give back the money Hester had given to the party. He told Sky News that “clearly” the comments were racist, but that it was right to keep the donation because Hester “is not a racist, and he has apologized for what he said.”
Asked by the BBC whether the party would take more money from Hester, Hollinrake said: “As I now understand…
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