Labour’s candidate for North East mayor has been accused of using a “racial slur” in a historic social media post.
She wrote “f*** off! I am not a gypsy!” in a since-deleted tweet.
National charity The Traveller Movement registered a complaint over the post with Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer this week, saying the term “gypsy” had often been used “as an all-encompassing racial slur throughout the centuries to justify the discrimination and persecution of all nomadic peoples”. It comes after the party has been engulfed in recent days by the scandal surrounding comments made about Israel and Jewish people by parliamentary candidates Azhar Ali and Graham Jones, from whom Labour has now withdrawn support.
In a letter to Sir Keir on Wednesday, Traveller Movement CEO Yvonne McNamara accused Ms McGuinness of having made “racist comments online about Romani (Gypsy), Roma and Irish Travellers” and asked how she had been selected as a candidate to stand first as a councillor in Newcastle, then to become Northumbria Police and Crime Commissioner, and now for the upcoming mayoral election.
Guy Renner-Thompson, her Conservative rival for the North East mayor job, has called on her to withdraw from the race, "How can the public have any faith in Ms McGuinness after this revelation. She sat back and allowed the Labour Party try and disown Jamie Driscoll for sharing a stage with someone while she has a racist slur in her name in the public domain. It shows a complete lack of honesty and integrity.
All racism is 100% unacceptable, and Ms McGuinness should resign from her post and withdraw from the mayoral race immediately."
