Sam Francis<\/span>Political reporter<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n 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”.<\/p>\n The Runcorn and Helsby MP apologised for her remarks, which were made during a TalkTV phone-in on Saturday, saying they were “phrased poorly” but maintained that many adverts were “unrepresentative of British society”.<\/p>\n Speaking on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Streeting claimed Pochin had only said sorry “because she’s been caught and called out”.<\/p>\n BBC News has contacted Reform to ask the party and Pochin for a response. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n 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.<\/p>\n Lammy said he was “disgusted” by what she said, adding “our country is so much better than this”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The Liberal Democrats have also called on Farage to suspend Pochin from the party.<\/p>\n The row erupted after Pochin said she agreed with a caller on TalkTV who complained about the “demographics” of advertising.<\/p>\n Pochin said the viewer was “absolutely right” and “it drives me mad when I see adverts full of black people, full of Asian people”.<\/p>\n She said “it doesn’t reflect our society” and “your average white person, average white family” is not “represented anymore”.<\/p>\n Pochin blamed the situation on the “woke liberati” in the “arty-farty world”.<\/p>\n “It might be fine inside the M25, but it’s definitely not representative of the rest of the country,” she said.<\/p>\n In a social media post later on Saturday, Pochin said her comments “were phrased poorly and I unreservedly apologise for any offence caused, which was not my intention”.<\/p>\n She said she was intending to say the advertising industry had gone “DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] mad” and were now “unrepresentative of British society as a whole”.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n “Representation should reflect the diversity of modern Britain, but it should also be proportionate and inclusive of everyone,” she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n On Sunday, Reform UK’s head of policy Zia Yusuf said Pochin was “right to apologise” but said she was raising “a very valid point we must be able to talk about”.<\/p>\n 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”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Streeting rejected her apology, saying she was “only sorry because she was caught and called out and said the quiet bit out loud”.<\/p>\n Asked about Pochin’s comments, Streeting said: “What she said was a disgrace, I think it was racist.<\/p>\n “What we have seen is a return of 1970s and 1980s-style racism I thought we had left in the history books. <\/p>\n “The only way we are going to defeat this racism is to call it out and confront it for what it is.”<\/p>\n 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.”<\/p>\n Streeting also condemned Farage’s lack of public comment about Pochin, accusing him of “deafening silence”. <\/p>\n
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