Northern Ireland MP criticised over ‘disgraceful’ Back Lives Matter Songs of Praise Facebook post

Gregory Campbell
PA
Leah Sinclair7 February 2021

A Northern Ireland MP has been criticised after describing the number of black people on an edition of Songs of Praise as "the BBC at its BLM (Black Lives Matter) worst".

Various anti-racism and ethnic minority organisations have called on Gregory Campbell to apologise after the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) MP made his comments in a Facebook post on 31 January.

In the post, the East Londonderry MP wrote: "There were five singers, all of them black. There were three judges all of them black and one presenter who was incidentally, yes black.

"The singers were all very good but can you imagine an all white line up with an all white jury and presented by a white person? No I can't either."

A statement, published by the North West Migrants Forum and backed by a number of Northern Ireland-based organisations, called on Mr Campbell to withdraw his comments and issue "a full public apology".

“Mr Campbell’s statement is not a trivial matter; it is deeply irresponsible,” the statement reads. 

“It is deeply worrying that Mr Campbell can confidently display such clear bias, apparently without fear of challenge or accountability. Given his role as an elected representative and public servant, Mr Campbell’s statement cannot go unchallenged; the potential costs are too high”. 

The organisation added that they found it alarming that a political leader “thinks it appropriate to use this kind of race-baiting to secure some sort of perceived political advantage, regardless of the consequences”.

Sinn Féin MLA Caoimhe Archibald described Mr Campbell's comments as "disgraceful" in a tweet.

“Gregory Campbell’s disgraceful comments don’t reflect the views of vast majority of the constituents he’d purport to represent,” she wrote.

“Racism, systemic & explicit, needs challenged every opportunity.”

Ms Archibald added that she’ll be reporting this to standards commissioner in HoC.

The statement said Mr Campbell's comments had come three weeks after an arson attack at the headquarters of the Belfast Multi-Cultural Association.

The fire caused significant damage to the building on Donegall Pass and the police have said they believe a fire at a building was a “deliberate hate crime”.

Dr Livingstone Thompson from the African and Caribbean Support Organisation NI, told the BBC his group was "truly distressed" by the fire.

"It would send real fear down the hearts of people in the black community and in other ethnic minority communities that we could have minorities targeted like this," he said.

"The multicultural centre is a very important hub for the interface between local black and minority ethnic organisations as well as a major place of interface for members of the Muslim community," he said.

"Our hearts go out to the members, the volunteers and others - our thoughts are with them and our support is with them.”

Mr Campbell has been contacted for comment.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in