Sir Keir Starmer admits former Labour MP Rupa Huq DID make ‘racist’ and ‘wrong’ comments about Kwasi Kwarteng

SIR Keir Starmer has admitted that one of his party's former MPs made a shocking RACIST comment about Kwasi Kwarteng.

On Monday Rupa Huq bizarrely described the Chancellor as being “superficially black” at a party conference panel called “what’s next for Labour’s Agenda on Race?”

A bombshell audio recording of the comment was leaked yesterday, and within hours Ms Huq was suspended from the party.

The MP said: “Superficially (Mr Kwarteng) is a black man…. if you hear him on the Today programme, you wouldn’t know he’s black.”

Mr Kwarteng is the UK’s first black Chancellor.

He was born in Ghana to Ghanaian parents and moved to Britain aged 13 after winning a prestigious scholarship to Eton College.

Ms Huq then shockingly went on to refer to former Chancellor Rishi Sunak as a "little brown guy".

And she even accused Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch and Home Secretary Suella Braverman of having been "superficial" candidates in the Tory leadership contest this year.

After originally doubling down on the comments, Ms Huq eventually backtracked and offered a grovelling apology.

She said last night: "I have today contacted Kwasi Kwarteng to offer my sincere and heartfelt apologies for the comments I made at yesterday’s Labour conference fringe meeting. My comments were ill-judged and I wholeheartedly apologise to anyone affected."

This morning Sir Keir blasted Ms Huq's comments as “racist” and “wrong”.

The Labour leader told LBC: “What she said, in my view, was racist, it was wrong, and she's been suspended from the whip in the party and that was done very, very quickly.

“I think that tells you how strongly I feel about those comments. She shouldn't have said it. She will be dealt with and I'll be absolutely clear, it was racist.”

Samuel Kasumu, a former Downing Street advisor, blasted Ms Huq for trying to put ethnic minority people into boxes.

He told The Sun: "I was extremely disturbed to hear the words of Rupa Huq at a recent Labour fringe.

"If she believes that black people cannot go to good schools or that being well spoken is a denial of a black person’s heritage then I am afraid she is the person that needs to check her own biases and privileges."