MP in racism storm won't face the satirists

Labour MP Rupa Huq has pulled out of Have I Got News For You after causing a storm for describing Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng as ‘superficially’ black.

The Ealing MP was due to make her debut on the BBC comedy show next Friday alongside  Ivo Graham and guest presenter Victoria Coren Mitchell as well as regulars Paul Merton and Ian Hislop.

However, programme makers Hat Trick Productions have said she has now ‘decided not to appear’ given the controversy over her comments, made at a fringe meeting of the Labour party conference in Liverpool.

She has been suspended from the party and apologised to Mr Kwarteng for her ‘ill-judged’ comments.

During a Q&A session, Ms Huq said of the Chancellor: 'He's superficially, he's, a black man but again he's got more in common... he went to Eton, he went to a very expensive prep school, all the way through top schools in the country.

‘If you hear him on the Today programme you wouldn't know he's black.’

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer London mayor Sadiq Khan have both branded the comment racist – and it would certainly have put Huq in the firing line had she appeared on Have I Got News For You.

Speaking to BBC Radio London, Khan said of Huq’s comment: ‘What it infers is that all black people speak a certain way and all black people are working class. Rupa is not racist but that comment was.’

Her replacement on Have I Got News For You has not yet been announced.

Published: 30 Sep 2022