Senior Labour MPs have expressed their frustration at the lack of black representation in No 10 as the Conservatives elected Kemi Badenoch as their new leader.
Labour sources said the WhatsApp group for Labour MPs of colour contained some furious messages from those who believe the party is not doing enough to represent black, Asian and other minority ethnic groups at the top of government.
One senior Labour frontbencher said it was a “serious embarrassment and a blind spot in No 10” that there were no senior black staff members at the very centre of a Labour government, when the Conservatives have elected a black woman as their leader.
They said there were a few people of colour among senior Downing Street staffers, including the deputy chief of staff Vidhya Alakeson and the policy adviser Rav Athwal, but they were struggling to think of any senior black advisers in Starmer’s team.
They said Labour was “nowhere near electing a woman leader or a black leader but both is totally unthinkable at the moment”.
There is also frustration that there is no race relations adviser in No 10 at the moment – in contrast to under some Conservative administrations.
Other concerns include the party’s response to Badenoch becoming leader, with some believing it would have been better to have an MP of colour leading the response on the broadcast rounds instead of the party chair, Ellie Reeves.
A record 89 minority ethnic MPs were elected to parliament overall in July 2024, according to research by the thinktank British Future, with a record number from Labour. However, David Lammy, the foreign secretary, is the only black cabinet minister in Starmer’s government.
The first Labour cabinet in 14 years also only has two ministers of Asian descent – Shabana Mahmood, one of the UK’s first Muslim female MPs, and Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary.
Some Labour MPs would have liked to see black women such as Chi Onwurah and Florence Eshalomi given ministerial roles, and have also raised the fact that no Asian MPs got their jobs back after resigning over the issue of Gaza.
No 10 was approached for comment. It is understood there are advisers in No 10 with responsibility for community relations and that the party chair would always be the most appropriate minister to have on the broadcast round for a party politics response to a new leader. Sources said a record number of BAME Labour MPs were elected in July but there was an acknowledgment that there is always more work to do in increasing representation.
Eshalomi and Lammy sent messages of congratulations to Badenoch after she became the first black leader of a UK party and first black woman to lead a major European party. However, the Labour MP Dawn Butler faced calls from some Tories to have the whip removed after she shared and then deleted a social media post accusing Badenoch of representing “white supremacy in blackface”. Labour sources noted the social media post was no longer present.
But Kwasi Kwarteng, the former Conservative MP and first black chancellor, said on GB News that he thought Butler should lose the whip.
“She’s got form on this. Yes, on a personal level, I’ve always got on with her, but her race-baiting is completely crazy. You can imagine that if Kemi had lost, she’d have said exactly the same thing,” he said.
“She’d have said: ‘Oh, of course Kemi lost because the Tories are racist, and Britain is racist.’ Now that she’s won, she’s saying it was racist. This is insanity. I genuinely think that, given what she said, she should have the whip removed.”
Badenoch has said she would prefer people to focus on political issues rather than her race.
“When I hear people say isn’t this remarkable, we have a black female leader of the Conservative party, I’m glad because it shows that my country and my party are actually places where it doesn’t matter who you are, what you look like. It’s about what the offer is. What I don’t want is for that to be the thing that ends up being talked about,” she told the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg on Sunday.
