Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar was at the centre of a racism row after a British Member of the House of Lords dubbed him a “typical Indian” in response to accusations of bad manners over his alleged failure to notify authorities during a trip to Northern Ireland.

The comments by Lord Kilclooney, a crossbench member of the House of Lords, followed Varadkar’s trip to Northern Ireland on Monday, which was criticised by some for failing to follow protocol.

While Varadkar’s office insisted all protocol had been followed, in response to a BBC story that quoted Democratic Unionist Party MP Sir Jeffrey Donaldson accusing Varadkar of “poor manners”, Lord Kilclooney, a former senior politician in the Ulster Unionist Party of Northern Ireland, tweeted that he was a “typical Indian”.

Lord Kilclooney declined to withdraw his comment insisting that he was “no racist” and that he had an “admiration for Indians”. “My point was that the PM had upset Unionists more than Irish PMs had!” He added: “I wanted to highlight that, unlike native Irish PMs, he had contravened the normal courtesies of visiting the UK and I certainly have succeeded. As one who works for Indians in the UK I am most definitely no racist — far from it — I admire them.”

This is not the first time Lord Kilclooney has raised Varadkar’s Indian ancestry. In a tweet last year, he faced criticism over a post in which, he described Varadkar as “the Indian.” He withdrew the tweet a few hours later because he had “caused upset and misunderstanding.”

‘Appalling remark’

When a complaint was made to the House of Lords Standards Commissioner it was dismissed for not falling within the ambit of the code of conduct, which exempts policy matters or a member’s view or opinions.

Complaints to the Commissioner can only be made in writing, and must refer to breaches to the code of conduct, backed by evidence.

Members of the House of Lords criticised his comments. “It is sad to see John Taylor, now Lord Kilclooney, make an offensive and racist remark about the Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar,” Lord Stewart Wood of Anfield, a Labour peer, told this paper. “Referring to anyone, let alone the Irish Taoiseach, as a ‘typical Indian’ is disparaging and insulting. Comments such as this should have no place in our politics, and I hope he apologises as soon as possible” “I find this remark appalling given that to us and the Indian diaspora around the world it is a matter of enormous pride to have Leo Varadkar as one of the first Indian origin Prime Ministers in the European Union,” said Lord Karan Bilimoria, a crossbench peer and founder of Cobra Beer. “The stance (Varadkar) has taken on Brexit has been laudable where he has stood up to protect the Good Friday Agreement and ensure that Brexit cannot lead to a hard Irish border... His mother is Irish, he was born in Ireland, if he isn’t a native who is?,” he told this paper, “I was born outside the UK but I am British and consider myself British.”

Thirty-nine-year-old Varadkar became Ireland’s Taoiseach in June 2017, after comfortably winning a leadership contest for the Fine Gael Party. The son of a Mumbai doctor — who moved to England and then Ireland — and an Irish nurse, he has rejected attempts to define him by single-issues or identities. “I’m not a half-Indian politician or a doctor politician or a gay politician for that matter…it is part of my character, I suppose,” he told Ireland’s RTE Radio station in 2015.

comment COMMENT NOW