- After marking Chinese New Year with my family, I went to the bar where Neil Coyle made racist comments.
- I was made to feel uncomfortable in my place of work, which led to my lodging a formal complaint.
- I hope this raises awareness of anti-Asian racism and of inappropriate conduct.
On Tuesday, February 1, I went for a Chinese New Year dinner with my family then returned to Parliament for work, before going to Strangers' Bar.
I had been at Strangers' the previous evening and witnessed Neil Coyle, a Labour MP, angrily shouting at a Labour staffer I know personally, silencing the bar. This led to reports on Twitter that evening and later in the Mail on Sunday.
On Tuesday evening, I spoke to other journalists at Strangers'. Coyle approached the small group I was in. He did not acknowledge my presence at the incident the previous evening, and spoke on several topics, including his claim that his constituency has the most restaurants with Michelin stars.
The topic eventually moved to Barry Gardiner, the Labour MP who had received funding from a suspected Chinese spy. Coyle made a remark suggesting Gardiner was being paid by "Fu Manchu", a comment that struck me at the time as not right, given it had been well reported who had been giving Gardiner money, and so there was no need to refer to a 20th Century trope of a Chinese supervillain.
I gently pushed back at Coyle about this. He asked me if it was just the case that I was being over-sensitive, before saying that he would apologise if he had said something bad and it wasn't just me being sensitive, which I believe was insincere. He then said that he had relatives of Chinese descent.
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."
He then left our group. The two other journalists in the group ask me what he had just said, perhaps having not heard clearly, and I repeat Coyle's remark to them.
Later that evening, as a group of us were leaving the bar, others turned and waved goodbye to other journalists. I also turned, and saw Coyle. Keen to defuse the tension from earlier, I waved goodbye to him, to which he responded by putting two fingers up at me.
I told friends that evening that someone had made Sinophobic remarks to me. But it was not until the following day that I fully realised his remarks were not just inappropriate but made me feel uncomfortable.
The next day, I encountered Coyle twice on the Parliamentary estate including on Wednesday evening when we were both in separate groups at Strangers'. He made no acknowledgement or recognition of me. I felt uncomfortable seeing him both times.
On Thursday morning, I informed the Speaker of the House of Commons what had happened. The Speaker and his staff took immediate action, in conjunction with the Serjeant at Arms and the House of Lords' authorities, to suspend Coyle from the bars on the Parliamentary estate pending an investigation by the Labour Whips office into the incidents on Monday and Tuesday evening.
Part of my job as a politics reporter is to develop and speak with contacts, be that over coffee in Portcullis House or a drink on the Terrace at the Palace of Westminster. I have always enjoyed working on the parliamentary estate, so the sense of discomfort I felt after seeing Coyle in Parliament came as a real surprise to me. The fact that I was made to feel uncomfortable in my place of work is one of the main reasons I informed the Speaker of this incident.
But another reason I am speaking out is because I feel a responsibility to those in the Parliamentary community as well as in political and public life to do so. I feel this is especially important given the fact that racism and hate crimes against Chinese, East Asian, and South East Asian people are reported to have increased during the pandemic.
At the Chinese New Year dinner on Tuesday evening, my mother asked me if there were many journalists of Chinese descent in the parliamentary lobby. I told her I believed there was just one, me – though I offer my sincere apologies if there are others.
Stereotyping someone because of their ethnicity should not happen to anyone. I have experienced very little racial hatred, and so it felt awkward and difficult to accept it had happened to me, especially in my place of work.
I am incredibly grateful to friends and colleagues in the press gallery and at Insider for all their support and reassurance that what had happened was inappropriate. The Speaker and his office have been excellent and supportive throughout. I am very grateful also to the MP I spoke with in the past week for their advice and support.
I do not believe it is my job as a journalist to get involved in the internal affairs of the Parliamentary Labour Party, nor, frankly, do I have any desire to do so, and so leave the investigation and any subsequent decisions to them.
One of the most helpful pieces of advice I was given was to consider what it is I hope to achieve by taking action. I think there are three things I wish to achieve through this.
The first is that this action of speaking out "will be no more than a footnote in my career", to quote Ailbhe Rea's thoughtful and helpful piece on speaking out about Stanley Johnson, the prime minister's father, in November 2021.
The second is that I hope this raises awareness of the issues of anti-Asian racism and of inappropriate conduct, especially where alcohol is involved.
And finally, I hope that others from ethnic minority backgrounds hoping to work in political journalism, in politics, or in any role on the Parliamentary estate do not feel disheartened or discouraged to do so. It is a great privilege and a joy to work in Parliament, and with any luck I will have the opportunity to do so for many years to come.