Good Morning Britain presenter Sean Fletcher accused Conservative Party Chairman James Cleverly of ‘putting party over his race’ in the ‘blackface’ row involving Sir Desmond Swayne.
Swayne said he would never apologise for wearing ‘blackface’ while dressed as singer James Brown at a party.
He added that the reason he wouldn’t wear blackface again is because ‘you have to go to some trouble to get it off’.
Cleverly told Good Morning Britain on Wednesday that Swayne’s response to the row was ‘funny’.
Speaking to presenters Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid, he said: ‘Well look, it’s not something I would do, obviously, but the point is that we’ve seen Prime Minister Trudeau doing this. I know it wasn’t done maliciously.
‘I know Desmond really really well, we are really good friends. We served together in the reserve forces. And while I completely understand how some people can take offense to it, he’s a great guy. He wouldn’t mean any offense with this.’
He added that Swayne’s answer was ‘a light-hearted response’.
Piers asked: ‘As a black man, do you find that funny?’ Cleverly replied: ‘Yes I do’.
Later Sean was asked how he felt about Swayne’s comments as a black man.
Sean said: ‘I’m really surprised. James Cleverly is putting the party before his race. Clearly he’s backing the party isn’t he? Clearly he’s been told that he needs to back his fellow man. But that for me is selling out big time.
And he’s talking about young kids will look at politics and think I don’t want to get in because I might get abuse for being called a coconut or whatever. If you see a man blacking up and then his response…’
Addressing Piers he added: ‘I don’t agree with you most of the time but I completely agree with everything you were saying there.’
Good Morning Britain airs weekdays from 6am on ITV.
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