News / Politics
Thangam Debbonaire in on-air clash with Reform MP over ‘Brown people’ comment
Former Bristol West MP Thangam Debbonaire told a Reform MP “you don’t like being on television with Brown people, do you?” in an on-air clash on Friday.
The Baroness was debating Sarah Pochin in a fiery live interview with Sky News when she made the comment, referencing a TalkTV interview last October when Pochin had said: “It drives me mad when I see adverts full of Black people, full of Asian people.”
Tensions erupted as the pair talked about a £5m personal donation Nigel Farage received shortly before running to be an MP in the 2024 general election.
Pochin took offence to Debbonaire interrupting her, to which the latter replied that she’d been interrupted by the Reform politician all evening.
The pair continued to talk over each other in an increasingly testy interview, with Debbonaire finally snapping when Pochin said: “You lost your seat to the Green Party.”
“Oh here we go,” said Debbonaire. “And you don’t like being on television with Brown people, do you Sarah? You’ve said that already.”
“That is outrageous,” responded Pochin.
“No, do you want me to find the quote of you saying you don’t like seeing Brown people on TV?” said Debbonaire, who is partly of Indian descent. “Do you want me to find it for you? Or was that not you? Was that some other Sarah Pochin?”
Pochin’s remark last year that “it drives me mad when I see adverts full of Black people, full of Asian people” was dubbed racist by senior Labour figures.
She later said her comments “were phrased poorly and I unreservedly apologise for any offence caused, which was not my intention”.
She maintained, however, that television adverts are “unrepresentative of British society as a whole”.
Main photo: Channel 4
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