Exclusive: Reform MP faces Parliamentary complaint over racist TalkTV remarks
The No Movement anti-racism alliance filed the formal complaint following remarks by Reform UK MP Sarah Pochin on TalkTV
Reform UK MP Sarah Pochin faces a formal complaint to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards after saying that “seeing adverts full of Black and Asian people drives me mad” during a live TalkTV broadcast on Saturday.
The No Movement, an anti-racism alliance co-founded by lawyer Lawrence Davies of Equal Justice Solicitors, filed the complaint via email on Sunday, describing the remarks as “inflammatory, untrue and racist”.
The group has urged Parliament’s standards watchdog to investigate Pochin’s comments, arguing that they breached the MPs’ Code of Conduct, which requires members to act in the public interest and avoid behaviour that conflicts with it.
The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards oversees such investigations and, if a breach is found, sanctions can range from a formal apology to suspension from the House of Commons.
“The comment on national TV by the said MP cannot have been based on a consideration of the public interest,” the complaint, seen by Black Current News, reads.
“Her comment clearly reinforced racist stereotypes and was intended to do so. Wishing for fewer Black or Asian faces on TV, in particular, often stems from negative biases or stereotypes.
“Research shows that a lack of positive, nuanced representation reinforces harmful stereotypes that influence real-life perceptions and contribute to discrimination”.
Pochin’s remarks, made during a live viewer phone-in, have since sparked widespread criticism and political fallout.
Pochin, who represents Runcorn and Helsby, made the comments in response to a caller named Stuart who asked whether Reform UK would “do anything to look at the representation of demographics of TV and public advertising”.
“We’re getting to the point where adverts don’t represent what this country looks like”, the caller added.
Agreeing, Pochin replied: “it drives me mad when I see adverts full of Black people, full of Asian people.
“It doesn’t reflect our society and I feel that your average white person, average white family is…not represented anymore.”
She blamed the situation on the “woke liberati” in the “arty-farty world”, adding: “It might be fine inside the M25, but it’s definitely not representative of the rest of the country”.
The remarks quickly drew widespread condemnation across the political spectrum.
Labour’s Health Secretary Wes Streeting branded the MP’s comments “racist”, saying she was “only sorry she’s been caught and called out”.
He added that she had “said the quiet bit loud” and warned of “a return to 1970s, 1980s-style racism”.
Conservative MP Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, initially stopped short of describing Pochin’s comments as racist.
“It’s not language I would have used,” he told the BBC, “but we should acknowledge that the public do have legitimate concerns about large-scale immigration.”
Philp later clarified in an interview with Times Radio that the remarks were, in fact, racist.
A Labour Party spokesperson said: “It’s shameful that Chris Philp failed to condemn Sarah Pochin’s racist comments six times in a row. It just goes to show how far the Tory party has fallen.”
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey added on X: “This is racism, pure and simple. It’s sad to see the Conservatives are pandering so much to Reform that they are too scared to call it out.”
While Pochin later apologised “for any offence caused”, she also sought to justify her remarks by citing the UK’s Black population as “only 4%” - a reference to 2021 Census data.
In her TalkTV comments, however, she referred to both Black and Asian people, who together constitute around 16.5% of the UK population (including “mixed” or “multiple ethnic” groups).
After further criticism from Mr Streeting, Pochin appeared to double down on Sunday, writing on X: “Dear Wes Streeting, I’m sorry you feel that way. Perhaps you could remind us all how strongly you spoke up when this happened,” bizarrely linking to a clip of Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar discussing a lack of diversity in Scottish public life.
In his complaint, Mr Davies argued that Pochin’s comments breached equality principles under the Equality Act 2010, perpetuating the false idea that diversity on screen has “gone too far” when “ethnic minorities remain underrepresented across most sectors, including media.”
He cited the 2025 Black in Focus report, which found that mid-career Black professionals remain excluded from senior roles in British television and film, and noted the exodus of Black British talent - including Idris Elba and David Harewood - who moved abroad to escape entrenched bias in the UK industry.
Mr Davies further described Pochin’s comments as “part of a dangerous trend normalising race-baiting in public life” and called for her to be formally censured.
A 2025 study commissioned by Channel 4 found that just over 50% of UK television adverts featured Black people in 2022, up from 37% in 2020; a rise thought to have been driven by the Black Lives Matter movement.
This compares with Black people making up around 4% of the UK population, according to the 2021 Census.
The study also found that South Asian people appeared in 17% of adverts - higher than their 8% share of the UK population - while East Asian people featured in 11% of adverts compared with just 1% of the population.
The research audited the top 500 adverts across all broadcasters over two, four-week periods.
However, we’re now in 2025; the Channel 4 research looks at what a part of the advertising landscape was like three years ago, while recent independent audits on TV advertising diversity remain scarce.
Anecdotally, many viewers say that representation on screen today - amid the post-BLM backlash and wider pushback against diversity and inclusion - doesn’t feel as visible as those figures suggest.
Black Current News has approached the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards for comment.
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