Starmer Dismisses Jenrick's Birmingham Remarks as Hard to Take Seriously.

Keir Starmer has condemned Robert Jenrick's statements about the lack of white faces in areas of Handsworth, suggesting the MP was difficult to regard credibly.

Leadership Campaign Claims

Starmer suggested that his comments were part of a covert Tory leadership campaign and asserted he did not believe they accurately reflected the neighborhood of the Birmingham district.

It’s quite hard to take anything that Robert Jenrick says seriously; he’s clearly still running his leadership campaign.

Jenrick has been accused of fuelling a wave of divisive sentiment after he reiterated his remarks despite criticism from individuals including the ex-Tory mayor of the West Midlands, the former mayor.

Local Response and Support

The prime minister, who did not directly engage the comments, said he had agreed with Andy Street's objections of Jenrick.

• Street had told BBC Newsnight the comments were incorrect and portrayed Handsworth as a highly cohesive community.
• I think that what Andy Street said was right, the prime minister said. Andy Street obviously was mayor for a long time and knows the area very very well.

The Conservative leader, defended Jenrick, saying he had made a truthful observation and that there was nothing wrong with making observations.

However, she added on the program: I don’t think this is where the debate should be, about how many faces people see on the street and what they look like.

Internal Divisions

The shadow chancellor became the initial high-ranking Conservative to disassociate from Jenrick over the statements, informing a gathering that they were not words that I would have used.

Jenrick repeatedly told interviewers at the event that he stood by the remarks and did not retract them as it would be wrong to shut down an important debate that we have to have as a country about social cohesion.

When a Sky News journalist put it to him that his remarks could embolden extremist organizations, he said it was an absolutely disgraceful and ridiculous inquiry.

Initial Statements

In his original remarks, Jenrick said Handsworth was one of the worst integrated places I’ve ever been to. Specifically, in the 90 minutes he was filming news there he didn’t see another white face.

That’s not the kind of country I want to live in. I want to live in a country where people are properly integrated. 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. That’s not the right way we want to live as a country.