Wealthy white British Conservative Party donor’s name plastered across headlines for making racially charged remarks about a Black British MP

A wealthy white British Conservative Party donor’s name has been plastered across headlines for making racially charged remarks about a Black British MP.

Frank Hester, 58, CEO of software firm The Phoenix Partnership (TPP), reportedly said during a 2019 company meeting, ‘It’s, like, trying not to be racist, but you see Diane Abbott on the TV, and you’re, like … you just want to hate all Black women because she’s there. And, I don’t hate all Black women at all, but I think she should be shot.’

Abbott, 70, is the first Black woman elected to parliament in the UK and the longest-serving black MP. She sits in the House of Commons as an independent, although she is a Labour Party member. She is also the most abused member of parliament who is subject to racist online abuse every single day. In the last general election, Diane Abbott received almost half of all the abusive tweets sent to female MPs, according to research by Amnesty International has revealed.

Hester has given £10 million ($12.76 million USD) in the past year to the ruling Conservative Party (the Tories) that has governed the UK since 2010. Reports say a party spokesperson confirmed Hester is its ‘largest-ever donor.’ The UK Labour Party leader, Keir Starmer, has asked the Tories to return the donation.

A TPP statement – the company Mr Hester founded said Hester telephoned Abbott twice to try to apologise and that he ‘accepts that he was rude about Diane Abbott in a private meeting several years ago, but his criticism had nothing to do with her gender nor colour of skin.’ The company’s statement also said Hester abhorred racism, ‘not least because he experienced it as the child of Irish immigrants in the 1970s.’

Abbott didn’t seem to accept that, though and said, “The fact that two MPs have been murdered in recent years makes talk like this all the more alarming.”

Let us know what you think of Hester’s remarks.