Saturday 1 October 2022 11:42 PM Kwasi Kwarteng says he is the 'wrong sort of black man for Labour' trends now

Kwasi Kwarteng has launched a hard-hitting attack on Labour for characterising him as not ‘the right sort of black person’, as he derided the party’s record on diversity.

The under-fire Chancellor spoke out in an exclusive Mail on Sunday interview, in which he also defended his mini-Budget that caused turmoil on the international money markets and alarmed Tory MPs.

Mr Kwarteng branded Labour as ‘backward’ when it came to identity politics as he gave his first response to their MP Rupa Huq shockingly describing him as ‘superficially’ black.

His comments came as the Left-wing Mirror newspaper yesterday apologised for a ‘terrible error’ after it mistakenly identified a different black man – a banker – as Mr Kwarteng.

Ms Huq, the MP for Ealing and sister of TV presenter Konnie Huq, was suspended by Sir Keir Starmer after saying at the Labour conference: ‘Superficially, [Mr Kwarteng] is a black man. He went to Eton I think he went to a very expensive prep school... if you hear him on [Radio 4’s] Today programme you wouldn’t know he is black.’

Mr Kwarteng said his Ghanaian-born parents had been hurt by the views expressed by Ms Huq, who was educated at a private London school where the fees are now £21,000 a year. Although the MP has apologised for her comments, Mr Kwarteng said they represented the mindset of the Labour Party as a whole.

‘There is always that element on the Left where it’s OK being black if you are the right sort of black person, that you subscribe to their agenda and like a bit of Britain-bashing and the rest of it,’ he said. ‘What drives the Left crazy is seeing successful ethnic minority politicians in the Conservative Party.

‘If you look at the last ten years, the Conservative Party is much more ethnically diverse than the Labour Party and they lecture us on diversity. They lecture us on gender diversity when they’ve never had a female leader; we’ve had three female Prime Ministers.

‘So, on gender, on race, on all of these things that they think they own, they are failing and are backward and the Conservative Party is much more progressive.

‘Actually, Conservatism at its heart is about treating people as individuals and looking at their merits and not as part of a class or a race or agenda. We take individuals as they come and I think that’s what most British people do.’

The Chancellor added that his parents, Alfred and Charlotte, who emigrated from Ghana to the UK as students in the 1960s, were dismayed by the remarks. ‘They are aspirational,’ he said. ‘They have always loved what Britain has to offer and it’s disappointing to see Labour politicians reduce everything to people’s skin colour, ethnic background or gender.’

The row came as:

Mr Kwarteng admitted in his MoS interview that with ‘hindsight’ the mini-Budget had been done ‘at very high speed’, and conceded that the markets may have been mollified had he spoken more about spending restraint, but insisted he was doing ‘the right thing’; The Chancellor prepared to tell the Conservatives’ annual party conference, which starts in Birmingham today, that ‘we must face up to the fact that for too long, our economy has not grown enough’ and ‘the path ahead of us was one of slow, managed decline’ – a fate he’s determined to reverse; Prime Minister Liz Truss readied an advertising campaign highlighting the Government’s £150 billion move to cap typical energy bills at around £2,500, after complaining to colleagues she had not received sufficient political credit for it; Tory MPs debated whether Ms Truss would survive as Premier until the next Election, with supporters of former Chancellor Rishi Sunak lobbying for a ‘coronation’ for him; Former Tory leadership contender Jeremy Hunt urged his colleagues to give Ms Truss ‘time’, saying: ‘I didn’t vote for her myself but she won the election fair and square.’

In his interview, Mr Kwarteng admits to being shaken by the reaction of City traders to his mini-Budget, saying: ‘It’s very difficult to actually anticipate how markets react to anything and if politicians were really good at reading markets, I suggest they probably would be market traders.

‘I think what we’re seeing now is more stability and I’m hopeful that we can build on that. I’m absolutely 100 per cent convinced that this was the right plan. We have a high tax model, we have high spend; that was not sustainable. We had a 70-year high in taxes and we had to reset the debate.

‘No one is suggesting that we should increase corporation tax, no one is suggesting that we should undo the reverse to the NI [National Insurance] increase. The energy intervention was crucially important.

‘Our people were facing £6,500 on their energy bills and this intervention essentially meant that the average household would pay £2,500 and that is really, really good.’

Mr Kwarteng, 47, also denies the markets would have been calmer had he accepted the offer from the independent Office For Budget Responsibility to provide an economic forecast alongside his statement.

He said: ‘There was a massive urgency in terms of the energy intervention... we had to act quickly and we did but if we had had a longer period, we would have talked to more people and engaged in the normal way. This was an emergency situation.’

Asked about a poll last week giving Labour a 33-point lead over the Tories, Mr Kwarteng said: ‘Of course we’re concerned about polls... but over the last six years, polls have come and gone.’

Kwasi Kwarteng says 'hindsight is a beautiful thing' in his first interview after his mini-budget crashed the pound, spooked the markets and sent Tory MPs into a tailspin  

ByGlen Owen Political Editor For The Mail On Sunday

When the British economy crashed on Black Wednesday in 1992, the Tory Chancellor at the time, Norman Lamont, was derided for saying that he had been ‘singing in his bath’, before declaring: ‘Je ne regrette rien.’

After the week he has endured at the mercy of the markets, the current Chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, is not risking a similar insouciance. ‘I wasn’t singing,’ he says. ‘I’ve got a terrible voice.’

In his first full interview since his mini-Budget – dubbed ‘Kamikwasi’ after it crashed the pound, spooked the markets and sent Tory MPs into a tailspin after one opinion poll posted a 33-point Labour lead – Mr Kwarteng offers a modicum of ‘regrette’.

‘Look, hindsight is a beautiful thing,’ he says. ‘The whole thing was done at speed, there’s no doubt about that. The Prime Minister kissed hands with Her Majesty on September 6 and the mini-Budget was delivered on September 23, and we had a period of national mourning. So it was all done at very high speed, that’s true.’

Beyond that, there is not yet any sign of a U-turn over the abolition of the 45p top rate of tax. The move only accounted for £2 billion of the £45 billion package of measures he announced – in addition to £150 billion of help to cap energy bills – but contributed to the slump in sterling as markets worried about the sophistication of the costings.

It is the havoc this has wreaked with the mortgage market – as interest rates have been forced on to an alarming upward trajectory – which has most unsettled MPs, casting serious doubt over whether the 45p measure will survive contact with the Commons when the Finance Bill is introduced.

The turmoil has also contributed to feverish talk in Westminster about toppling Liz Truss and installing the fourth Tory Prime Minister

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