Health Secretary Wes Streeting has criticised Reform MP Sarah Pochin for what he called “racist” language after she complained about adverts being “full of black people, full of Asian people”.

Speaking on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Streeting claimed Pochin had only said sorry “because she’s been caught and called out”.

BBC News has contacted Reform to ask the party and Pochin for a response.

Justice Secretary David Lammy called on the Reform UK leader Nigel Farage to “sack” Pochin from the party for her “mean, nasty and racist” remarks.

Lammy said he was “disgusted” by what she said, adding “our country is so much better than this”.

The Liberal Democrats have also called on Farage to suspend Pochin from the party.

Pochin said the viewer was “absolutely right” and “it drives me mad when I see adverts full of black people, full of Asian people”.

She said “it doesn’t reflect our society” and “your average white person, average white family” is not “represented anymore”.

Pochin blamed the situation on the “woke liberati” in the “arty-farty world”.

“It might be fine inside the M25, but it’s definitely not representative of the rest of the country,” she said.

In her statement, Pochin cited a Channel 4 study which found that the proportion of adverts featuring black people jumped after the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, from 37% in 2020 to 51% in 2022.

“Representation should reflect the diversity of modern Britain, but it should also be proportionate and inclusive of everyone,” she said.

Before Streeting’s interview was broadcast, Yusuf told Sky News Pochin was “a lovely person” and her point had been “statistically borne out by a Channel 4 study”.

Asked about Pochin’s comments, Streeting said: “What she said was a disgrace, I think it was racist.

“What we have seen is a return of 1970s and 1980s-style racism I thought we had left in the history books.

“The only way we are going to defeat this racism is to call it out and confront it for what it is.”

He accused Reform of failing to speak for the whole country, saying: “They think our flag only belongs to some of us who look like me, not all of us who built this country and built its success.”

Streeting also condemned Farage’s lack of public comment about Pochin, accusing him of “deafening silence”.

Pochin was previously criticised by Yusuf, who was party chairman at the time, for suggesting a ban on the burka during a speech in Parliament.

Asked about her comments, Conservative shadow home secretary Chris Philp said he would not “call her racist” and said “there are legitimate concerns the public have about mass migration that need to be addressed”.

“It’s certainly not language that I would use and I don’t think politicians should speak in those terms,” he added.

The Liberal Democrats have called on Farage to withdraw the whip from Pochin over her comments and called criticised Philp for “refusing to call out blatant racism for what it is”.

Party spokesman Max Wilkinson said: “Nigel Farage keeps insisting that racism has no place in his party.

“Now is his chance to prove it – he must withdraw the whip or concede that Reform tolerates blatant racism.”

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Source: www.bbc.com