The Labour peer Thangam Debbonaire clashed with Reform UK’s Sarah Pochin at the Makerfield byelection count, asking the MP: “You don’t like being on television with brown people, do you Sarah?” The row erupted during a testy interview on Sky News that included an exchange about the £5m personal gift that Nigel Farage accepted from the Thailand-based crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne before he stood as an MP in 2024. The gift, first revealed by the Guardian, is under investigation by the parliamentary standards commissioner.
Pochin, the MP for Runcorn and Helsby, defended Farage, saying he received the gift before politics and that his security had been taken away by the Labour government. Debbonaire responded: “He doesn’t. Parliament provides security as you very well know … You have been interrupting me all night, Sarah, and now you’re just talking rubbish.” Pochin then mocked Debbonaire for losing her seat to the Greens in 2024. Debbonaire shot back: “And you don’t like being on television with brown people, do you, Sarah? You’ve said that already.” She appeared to reference Pochin’s comments on TalkTV last October in which the Reform MP said: “It drives me mad when I see adverts full of black people, full of Asian people.”
“Labour peer clashes with Reform MP over 'brown people' as Andy Burnham wins Makerfield byelection with over 50% of vote.”
The clash came as Andy Burnham was declared the constituency’s new MP around 3am after a seismic win. The Manchester mayor won more than 50% of the vote, securing 6,100 more votes than Reform and Restore combined. Culture secretary Lisa Nandy had said by 1am she was “optimistic that Andy may have pulled off what may be an historic win here”. Reform conceded defeat behind the scenes with a cordial handshake around 1.30am. In his victory speech, Burnham said of Labour: “This is a final chance to change.”