By Ben Kerrigan-
Tory MP, Bob Stewart, is to be investigated for racist abuse after telling an activist to “go back to Bahrain”.
Scotland Yard has said it will investigate video footage after a complaint from Sayed Alwadaei, the director of the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (Bird), who had an angry exchange with Stewart outside a reception hosted by the Bahraini embassy.
Scotland Yard has said it will investigate video footage after a complaint from Sayed Alwadaei, the director of the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (Bird), who had an angry exchange with Stewart outside a reception hosted by the Bahraini embassy.
Stewart has apologised for the remarks and said he should not have been provoked by Alwadaei’s “taunting” – which the activist said did not constitute a real apology.
Alwadaei is heard asking Stewart about a trip paid for by the Bahraini government in the run-up to its elections, saying, “how much did you sell yourself to the Bahraini regime?”
In response, the MP for Beckenham is heard saying: “Get stuffed. Bahrain’s a great place. End of.” And then he is heard saying: “Go away, I hate you.” Stewart then says: “Go back to Bahrain.” After another comment from Alwadaei, he adds: “Now you shut up you stupid man.” He then says: “You’re taking money off my country, go away.”
‘Go back to Bahrain’, Tory MP Bob Stewart tells human rights activist
The Met confirmed it had received a report “from a man alleging he had been verbally racially abused” outside the Foreign Office’s Lancaster House on 14 December. “Officers from Westminster CID [Criminal Investigation Department] are investigating,” the statement added.
. “I found Mr Stewart’s comments to the press deeply offensive. Instead of approaching me directly to give a genuine apology, he is now attempting to blame me for his own inexcusable behaviour,” he said.
“Being on the receiving end of his abusive comments, ‘I hate you’ and ‘go back to Bahrain’, is hard to describe. I have reported the incident to the police as a racially motivated hate crime.”
Stewart said he defended Bahrain because he was stationed there in 1969 and said he had seen the country progress.
Stewart has been on two trips to Bahrain, paid for by the country’s government, since 2021. Last month, according to the register of members’ interests, he visited the Bahrain airshow and met the foreign minister, declaring a cost of £1,245.56 for the five-day trip.
He also declared another trip in November 2021, including flights, accommodation and meals with a value of £5,349 as part of the parliamentary delegation to the thinktank International Institute for Strategic Studies’ Manama Dialogue.
A Conservative party spokesperson said: “We have an established code of conduct and formal processes where complaints can be made in confidence. This process is rightly confidential.”
Stewart has apologised for the remarks and said he should not have been provoked by Alwadaei’s “taunting” – which the activist said did not constitute a real apology.
Alwadaei is heard asking Stewart about a trip paid for by the Bahraini government in the run-up to its elections, saying, “how much did you sell yourself to the Bahraini regime?”
In response, the MP for Beckenham is heard saying: “Get stuffed. Bahrain’s a great place. End of.” And then he is heard saying: “Go away, I hate you.” Stewart then says: “Go back to Bahrain.” After another comment from Alwadaei, he adds: “Now you shut up you stupid man.” He then says: “You’re taking money off my country, go away.”
‘Go back to Bahrain’, Tory MP Bob Stewart tells human rights activist
The Met confirmed it had received a report “from a man alleging he had been verbally racially abused” outside the Foreign Office’s Lancaster House on 14 December. “Officers from Westminster CID [Criminal Investigation Department] are investigating,” the statement added.
Mr Stewart, a former Army officer who was stationed in Bahrain in the 1960s, later expressed contrition for his original remarks.
“The protesters persistently taunted me by saying I had taken money from Bahrain,” he said.
“That deeply offended me. I certainly have not and told them so repeatedly.
“I admit I fell for the taunts and should not have responded which I regret. My comments were meant to tell them they could protest safely in Bahrain… Bahrain gets a very unfair press and I feel that strongly.
“I am sorry if anyone thought I was being racist in any way. Honestly I was not. I wish now I had not been drawn by the taunts (a mistake) but I was and I repeat, I apologise for that. The last thing I meant to be was racist as I have so many good Bahraini friends.”
Mr Alwadaei fled Bahrain in 2011 after being arrested for taking part in anti-government protests and was able to claim political asylum in the UK in 2012.
Speaking following the incident with Mr Stewart. Mr Alwadaei said: “I still have the scars from where the authorities kicked me in the head, and if I went back to Bahrain I would face further torture and imprisonment. My family members are still suffering from reprisals.”
He added: “I don’t believe I would have been told to ‘go back’ to the country that violently tortured me if it weren’t for the colour of my skin. No-one should be subjected to racial abuse.”
Mr Alwadaei said he had also complained to the parliamentary commissioner for standards, Kathryn Stone and the Conservative party chairman Nadhim Zahawi.
A Conservative Party spokesman said: “We have an established code of conduct and formal processes where complaints can be made in confidence. This process is rightly confidential.”