"Let them go if they don't like it here."

Is "Let them go if they don't like it here" a racist statement? You're right this needs context; so here is the context. Voice columnist, and some might say "race hustler", Darcus Howe said in the Voice that the election of "Boris Johnson, a right-wing Conservative, might just trigger off a mass exodus of older Caribbean migrants back to our homelands". A journalist, Marc Wadsworth, pointed these derogatory remarks about Boris Johnson to Boris's political advisor, James McGrath, who replied "Well let them go if they don't like it here." and described Marcus Howe as "shrill". James McGrath then wrote a comment on the Voice website in reply:

"The columnist suggested that older people from the Caribbean might migrant back to their homelands if Boris Johnson became Mayor... I felt that this suggestion was ridiculous and intended as a slur and responded by saying with words to effect of 'let people go if they don't like it here'... To imply that I meant that all black people who didn't support Boris Johnson should leave the country is utterly absurd and incorrect. And I would ask please that this insinuation is immediately retracted."

Of course what has happened is that James McGrath has lost his job, Boris Johnson apparently feeling that he had no choice to avoid more libellous claims that he was a racist.

That's 21st century Britain, there is no greater crime than racism and an allegation of racism is enough to lose someone their job.



Melanie Phillips has a great article on this story.