Reform By-Election Candidate 'Thinks Non-White People Can't Be English', Says Starmer

Reform UK by-election candidate Matt Goodwin does not believe non-white people like Rishi Sunak and Marcus Rashford can be English, Keir Starmer has said.

The prime minister took aim at right-wing former academic Matt Goodwin over comments he made in an interview with The Spectator.

Goodwin, who is standing in the Gorton and Denton by-election, said: “My view is Englishness is an ethnicity that is deep deeply rooted in a people that can trace their roots back over generations. It is a very distinctive identity and a different identity from Britishness.

“So I think somebody could identify as British and they can be British but they cannot simultaneously identify as English.”

In a speech on Thursday, Starmer hit out those who he said are “selling the lie that people who look different cannot really live together”.

The PM said: “You see it in politicians like the Reform candidate in Gorton and Denton, who look at people like Rishi Sunak, Shabana Mahmood and presumably Marcus Rashford, Shirley Bassey, Anas Sarwar, and say they can’t really be English or Welsh or Scottish because they are not white.”

Starmer said that was “an affront to British values as I see it”.

“And I tell you, as long as I’ve got breath in my body I will always fight against that politics,” he said.

Responding on X, Goodwin said: “I’m being attacked by Keir Starmer – a man who appointed someone with a known friendship with a paedophile to represent Britain, and who wanted Britain to elect Jeremy Corbyn, a self-described ‘friend’ of Islamist terrorists, as prime minister. Spare me the lectures.”