Police are to investigate an allegation of racial abuse after the Guardian revealed a confrontation in which the Tory MP Bob Stewart told an activist to “go back to Bahrain”.
Scotland Yard has said it will investigate video footage after a complaint from Sayed Alwadaei, the director of the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (Bird), who had an angry exchange with Stewart outside a reception hosted by the Bahraini embassy.
Stewart has apologised for the remarks and said he should not have been provoked by Alwadaei’s “taunting” – which the activist said did not constitute a real apology.
Alwadaei is heard asking Stewart about a trip paid for by the Bahraini government in the run-up to its elections, saying, “how much did you sell yourself to the Bahraini regime?”
In response, the MP for Beckenham is heard saying: “Get stuffed. Bahrain’s a great place. End of.” And then he is heard saying: “Go away, I hate you.” Stewart then says: “Go back to Bahrain.” After another comment from Alwadaei, he adds: “Now you shut up you stupid man.” He then says: “You’re taking money off my country, go away.”
Alwadaei, who won an Index on Censorship award in 2020, was imprisoned and tortured in Bahrain for taking part in a pro-democracy uprising in 2011 and after being sentenced sought political asylum in the UK in 2012, where he co-founded Bird. He is a regular protester at events hosted by Bahrain in the UK and at visits by the government and royal family.
The Met confirmed it had received a report “from a man alleging he had been verbally racially abused” outside the Foreign Office’s Lancaster House on 14 December. “Officers from Westminster CID [Criminal Investigation Department] are investigating,” the statement added.
Alwadaei told the Guardian he would be interviewed by police this week. “I found Mr Stewart’s comments to the press deeply offensive. Instead of approaching me directly to give a genuine apology, he is now attempting to blame me for his own inexcusable behaviour,” he said.
“Being on the receiving end of his abusive comments, ‘I hate you’ and ‘go back to Bahrain’, is hard to describe. I have reported the incident to the police as a racially motivated hate crime.”
Stewart told the Guardian when the video came to light that he apologised for his remarks and said Alwadaei had “persistently taunted me by saying I had taken money from Bahrain”.
“I admit I fell for the taunts and should not have responded which I regret,” he said. “My comments were meant to tell them they could protest safely in Bahrain … Bahrain gets a very unfair press and I feel that strongly.
“I am sorry if anyone thought I was being racist in any way. Honestly I was not. I wish now I had not been drawn by the taunts – a mistake – but I was and I repeat, I apologise for that. The last thing I meant to be was racist as I have so many good Bahraini friends.”
Stewart said he defended Bahrain because he was stationed there in 1969 and said he had seen the country progress.
Stewart has been on two trips to Bahrain, paid for by the country’s government, since 2021. Last month, according to the register of members’ interests, he visited the Bahrain airshow and met the foreign minister, declaring a cost of £1,245.56 for the five-day trip.
He also declared another trip in November 2021, including flights, accommodation and meals with a value of £5,349 as part of the parliamentary delegation to the thinktank International Institute for Strategic Studies’ Manama Dialogue.
A Conservative party spokesperson said: “We have an established code of conduct and formal processes where complaints can be made in confidence. This process is rightly confidential.”
