LABOUR MP Neil Coyle has been suspended from the party while an investigation goes underway into alleged racist remarks made by Coyle inside a popular bar.
Journalist Henry Dyer said that he was inside the Stranger’s Bar with Coyle and had been discussing the scandal surrounding Labour MP Barry Gardiner, who was recently found to have received funds from a Chinese spy, along with hiring the spy’s son.
Giving his view, Mr Coyle, the Labour MP for Bermondsey and Old Southwark, said his colleague had been “paid by Fu Manchu” – a cartoon villain that is considered highly offensive due to its reliance on racial stereotypes.
Writing for Business Insider, Mr Dyer said: “I responded by saying that I am British-Chinese, to which Coyle responded that he could tell, “from how you look like you’ve been giving renminbi [the Chinese currency] to Barry Gardiner.”
Mr Dyer claims that as he left the bar later that evening he waved at Mr Coyle to “defuse the tension”, but the MP responded by “putting two fingers up at me”.
Last week, the Daily Mail reported Mr Coyle had launched an angry expletive-laden anti-Brexit rant in the Strangers’ Bar.
Mr Coyle has since been banned from the bars on the parliamentary estate for six months, and now appears to accept having said the offensive remarks to Mr Dyer.
“I’m very sorry for my insensitive comments” Coyle said in a brief statement. “[I] have apologised to everyone involved and will be cooperating fully with the investigation.”
