Sir Keir Starmer has slapped down Robert Jenrick for claiming there is no integration in parts of Birmingham.
The Prime Minister said the Shadow Justice Secretary should not be taken seriously after it emerged that he had complained about not seeing another white face while in Handsworth.
Wading into the growing row for the first time, Sir Keir accused the senior Tory MP of just trying to continue his party leadership campaign.
His comments came after leaked audio emerged in which Mr Jenrick described Handsworth as ‘absolutely appalling’ and looking like a ‘slum’ when he visited the area to make a video about litter.
Mr Jenrick said it was ‘one of the worst integrated places’ he had ever been to, and in 90 minutes of filming he ‘didn’t see another white face’.
He insisted integration was ‘not about the colour of your skin or your faith’ but that he did not want people living ‘parallel lives’.
Sir Keir Starmer has slapped down Robert Jenrick (pictured at the Tory conference in Manchester) for claiming there is no integration in parts of Birmingham
Asked on his trade mission to India if Mr Jenrick had been wrong, Sir Keir replied: ‘It’s quite hard to take anything that Robert Jenrick says seriously; he’s clearly still running his leadership campaign.
‘We’re working hard on questions of integration but we need no lessons or lectures from Robert Jenrick on any of this. He’s clearly just engaging in a leadership campaign.’
The PM added that he backed the view of former Tory West Midlands Mayor Andy Street, who said Handsworth was ‘actually a very integrated place’ and had ‘come a hell of a long way’ since it was marred by riots in the 1980s.
Sir Keir said: ‘I think that what Andy Street said was right. Andy Street obviously was mayor for a long time and knows the area very very well.’
