Anti-racism campaigners urge First Minister to retract comments defending Donald Trump
Welsh anti-racism campaigners have signed an open letter to Eluned Morgan, calling on her to retract comments made in November where she claimed that Donald Trump was not a racist.
The signatories include representatives from Stand Up To Racism, Black Lives Matter, Muslim Association of Britain, Muslim Engagement & Development (MEND), and Plaid Cymru MS Sioned Williams and Wales Green Party leader Anthony Slaughter, as well as Welsh trade union leaders, academics, refugee, peace, faith and community groups.
The letter, published ahead of Trump’s presidential inauguration on Monday in Washington, follows remarks made by the First Minister during a BBC radio phone-in with presenter Nicky Campbell on 6 November 2024, where she answered a question about whether Trump was a racist by saying, “I shouldn’t think he is, to be honest. There were a hell of a lot of black people and Latinos who voted for him in the election.”
Reckless
Hussein Said, Chair of Stand Up To Racism Cardiff, said: “Eluned Morgan’s comments are reckless, especially when we are witnessing the sharp rise of Reform UK here in Wales. It is very clear that Farage sees Trump’s victory as a road map to his victory here in the UK.
To dismiss the racism of Trump is to ignore the very real ways in which he emboldens far right and fascist figures here in the UK. As Trump and Reform UK gain positions of power we must not concede on our stance against their politics being seen as legitimate.
“The Islamophobia and anti-migrant rhetoric they use should never be seen as legitimate within our society. We must call it out wherever we see it, no matter the position within society they have.”
The letter, signed by nearly 100 campaigners and organisations, states: “We condemn Eluned Morgan’s recent defence of Donald Trump. To claim that Trump is not a racist is to ignore the currents of cruelty and violence that surge through his rhetoric, aimed squarely at the most vulnerable. His relentless vilification of immigrants during recent U.S. elections reaches into a dark, historical well of xenophobia and fear-mongering.”
The letter goes on to detail Trump’s use of inflammatory language, his policies such as the Muslim travel ban and mass deportation plans, and the ideological underpinnings of his presidency, which the signatories argue are antithetical to democracy and human rights.
The signatories are demanding that the First Minister retract her comments, issue an apology, and aligns herself with Wales’s anti-racist communities.
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If Trump is not a racist, then he’s even worse than that: cynically exploiting the racism of others for his own benefit.
Just like a certain Welsh Tory who’s been banging the same drums, leaping on the same band wagons a tootling away on his dog-whistle like the pied piper from hell
The face, the bronze mask, the likeness that will go down the centuries, one of self-love and evil in equal measures, A.H.—D.T.
The daughter of a clergyman and she can’t see the evil in that man, a Mitford Girl for sure…
I mean he is rubbing his hands at the thought of executing people, tearing them from their homes by the million. He is a monster…
First Minister Baroness Princess Eluned please get out of the way of a better Cymru…
Defending Donald Trump takes some doing. He’s a distinctively vile specimen of humanity. I absolutely respect the right of US citizens to elect whomsoever they see fit as their head of state; I’m not an American, and so I have no say, and should have no say, in their choice. But I do have a right to hold an opinion as to the choice that American voters have made, and if, as it seems, a majority of US voters have chosen to back Trump, then – to speak frankly – I pretty much despise them. Their choice makes them a… Read more »
A hundred years of lead in petrol…what did the Romans ever do for us…they gave us plumbers that’s what…oh and Curse Tablets, pass them round…
Follow up questions for our leader.
Is the Earth spherical?
I shouldn’t think it is to be honest.
Is the day 24 hours long?
I shouldn’t think it is to be honest.
Does the sun rise in the morning?
I shouldn’t think it does to be honest.
Is the Pope Catholic?
I shouldn’t think he is to be honest.
Do you get my drift? Retract or resign.
A ban on Muslims entering the country.. Questioning Barack Obama’s birth certificate. Calling Neo-Nazis ‘very fine people’ after killing a protester in Charlottesville, Virginia Refusing to distance himself from David Duke and white nationalist movements who endorsed him as President Telling Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib and Ayanna Pressley, and Ilhan Omar to ‘go back to their own country’ even though they are American citizens. Claiming that Haitian migrants are eating cats and dogs. Calling Elizabeth Warren ‘pocahontas’ citing her native-American heritage. Referring to Covid-19 as the ‘China Virus’ fueling hatred towards Asian Americans. Bush may be war criminal but at… Read more »