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A former vice president of the Ulster Unionist Party has been accused of racism after describing the vice president-elect of the United States, Kamala Harris, as “Indian.”
There were calls to action against John Taylor for his tweet about Ms. Harris, who is the first black and Asian-American person to be elected to the position.
John Taylor serves as a member of the British House of Lords as Lord Kilclooney.
In 2018, Taylor tweeted “typical Indian” in response to a tweet about criticism of then-Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, whose father is from India, during a visit to Northern Ireland.
After widespread condemnation, the former UUP member, now 82, insisted that he “is certainly not a racist” and that he has “an admiration for Indians.”
In November 2017, it acknowledged that a comment it made about Mr. Varadkar had caused “discomfort and misunderstandings” and withdrew it.
On that occasion he had referred to the Taoiseach as “the Indian.”
Harris, a senator from California, also made history by being the first woman to be elected vice president when voters chose her and Joe Biden to replace Donald Trump in the White House.
Today Taylor tweeted: “What if Biden goes ahead and the Indian becomes president? Who becomes vice president?”
Labor Minister Wes Streeting said “action must be taken” on the pair’s tweet.
“He did it before to Leo Varadkar and now he did it to Kamala Harris. This kind of racism would be unacceptable to anyone, but to a member of the House of Lords it is incredible,” Streeting tweeted.
Harris, the daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants, will become the highest-ranking woman to hold elected office in the United States when the Democrat takes office on January 20.
The House of Lords has yet to comment.
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