MPs and Lords have urged a former deputy leader of the Ulster Unionist party to apologise after referring to Kamala Harris, US vice-president-elect, as “the Indian” in his tweet.
82-year-old peer John Kilclooney received considerable criticism when he tweeted, “What happens if Biden moves on and the Indian becomes President. Who then becomes Vice President?”
The Speaker of the Lords, Norman Fowler, demanded that Lord Kilclooney retract his remarks about Kamala Harris. In the meantime, Labour’s Lords leader, Angela Smith, is also reportedly making an official complaint. Apparently, Lord Kilclooney, who sits as a crossbench peer, claimed he had not “known her name yet” and denied it was racist.
He tweeted, “Whilst Biden is proud to be Irish and Harris is rightly proud of her Indian background, I certainly withdraw my reference to her as an Indian as it seems to have upset some people. I did not know her name and identified her with the term Indian. Most people understood. Racist NO.”
In a further statement to the Press Association, he said, “I’m very fond of India myself, I’m a member of the British India all-party group, I have two Indians (tenants) in my flats here in London and there’s nothing racist in it whatsoever.”
