Rishi Sunak is facing growing calls to return the £10m donated to the party by the major donor Frank Hester after Downing Street finally described the remarks Hester made about Diane Abbott as “racist and wrong”.
Andy Street, the Tory mayor of the West Midlands, joined Labour and the Liberal Democrats in pressuring the prime minister to “think about the company” he kept, and give the money back to the party’s “biggest ever donor”.
But despite No 10 calling Hester’s remarks racist on Tuesday evening, the Post Office minister, Kevin Hollinrake, said on Wednesday that returning the cash was not the “right thing to do” and suggested the Tories would accept further donations from the businessman.
Hollinrake said the Tories did not believe Hester’s remarks meant he was “necessarily a racist” and that Hester had apologised.
Street told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I would think about the company I kept and I would give that money back.
“I have to give you my view rather than what the party should do, but I have thought about how I would handle that situation.”
The prime minister faces a tough prime minister’s questions on Wednesday afternoon and is expected to be asked why it took him so long to call out Hester’s comments in a week in which he is due to outline measures on extremism.
Hester, who has given £10m to the Tories in the past year, said in a 2019 meeting reported by the Guardian that he did not hate all black women. But he said that seeing Diane Abbott, who is Britain’s longest-serving black MP, on TV meant “you just want to hate all black women because she’s there”.
Ministers and No 10 spent 24 hours refusing to say the remarks were racist until after the business secretary, Kemi Badenoch, broke ranks to say they were, late on Tuesday afternoon.
Hollinrake told Sky News: “I think his comments were clearly racist and wrong, there is no question about that. You don’t judge somebody’s character based on their skin colour. He has apologised for that. I don’t think that means Frank Hester is necessarily a racist.”
But when asked whether the Tories should give back Hester’s money, he said: “I don’t think that is the right thing to do.”
Asked if the Conservatives would take another £10m from Hester, Hollinrake told BBC Breakfast: “On the basis that we don’t think Mr Hester is a racist, yes,” before clarifying that was the current situation.
Hollinrake said there were “bigger issues at play here that we need to focus on, in terms of probably greater priorities” for the government than the story surrounding Hester. He added: “People I spoke to yesterday, I spoke to members of the public, I spoke to postmasters, nobody mentioned this story to me.”
Alistair Burt, a former Conservative minister, said on Tuesday the party should “return the donations, end the relationship and ask decent donors to make up the difference” as “many Conservative members will be watching”.
Abbott said it was “frightening” to hear of remarks made by Hester. She said: “I live in Hackney, I don’t drive, so I find myself, at weekends, popping on a bus or even walking places, more than most MPs … For all of my career as an MP I have thought it important not to live in a bubble, but to mix and mingle with ordinary people. The fact that two MPs have been murdered in recent years makes talk like this all the more alarming.”
She said she had made a report about the comments to the Metropolitan police, who were assessing the complaint.
As revealed by the Guardian on Tuesday, in 2019 Hester also asked if there was “no room for the Indians” and suggested staff climb on a train roof during a crowded meeting, before saying he made “a lot of jokes about racism”.
