A black Remain campaigner has accused a prominent Brexiteer of racism after he described the activist as looking “like Diane Abbott” during a row about statistics on a no-deal Brexit.
Leave.EU communications director Andy Wigmore asked Remainer Femi Oluwale if he had “eaten” the Hackney MP, while questioning his grasp of maths.
Speaking to HuffPost UK, Oluwale said: “I look nothing like Diane Abbott. The only similarity is the colour of my skin and hers, so logically if he’s saying I look like her on that basis, he must be saying all black people look alike.”
“It’s definitely a racist tweet.”
Wigmore denied the accusation, tweeting: “It’s rude what I said but it’s not racist,” and pointed to a notification from Twitter saying that his comments had not broken the site’s rules.
Oluwale, a spokesperson for Brexit people’s vote youth group ‘Our Future Our Choice’, had tweeted about a no-deal Brexit which included tweeted statistics about a no-deal Brexit and included some statistics.
“If anyone wants to explain to me how No-Deal parties getting 44.5% of the vote and 2nd Referendum parties getting 54.5% of the vote somehow translates to a mandate for leaving the EU on No-Deal, I’d really appreciate it. My head hurts,” he wrote.
Referring to Wigmore’s comments, Oluwale said: “These people don’t speak for Brexit voters. It’s a tragedy that people in the left behind regions of the UK who voted Brexit to wake up Westminster, are represented in the media by a bunch of Faragist bigots.”
Wigmore’s tweet also prompted a backlash on social media.