County Durham’s deputy council leader accused of inciting racism and hate over migrant dinghy joke
By Jasmine Davey
Darren Grimes, Durham County Council’s Reform UK deputy council leader, has been contacted by police after Kim McGuinness, the Labour Mayor of North East England, accused him of “inciting racism and hate” on X (formerly Twitter).
On 24th August, Cllr Grimes shared a video of his brother on a boat in Scarborough, in which he was the only “white fella”. The post was captioned “I had to ask him if he was on a dinghy to Dover, but then I realised there are women and children on board [the boat]”.
Mayor McGuinness then re-shared what she described as a “hideous” post, asking “is this not just inciting racism and hate?” Cllr Grimes later disclosed that he had been contacted by law enforcement regarding this incident, shaming “disgusting media and Labour politicians for wasting police time in this way”. No further details were shared about Cllr Grimes’s interaction with the police.
Cllr Grimes later defended his actions on X, assuring followers that he had not made any racist comment. The councillor emphasised that his issue was with migration and its impact on Britain, asserting that “silencing debate by branding it as ‘racist’ doesn’t protect anyone – it only denies the public the honest discussion they deserve”.
Cllr Grimes further criticised Mayor McGuinness on his TikTok account, blaming her for being “silent” when a Syrian migrant was accused of sexually assaulting two girls in Newcastle, and when women had voiced concerns to him about the emergence of migrant HMOs.
Cllr Grimes has been vocal about the notion of ‘consent’ in Labour’s handling of migration, referring to the political concept of ‘government by consent’. Posts on his TikTok and Substack appear to doubt whether the British public have ‘consented’ to the Labour government’s actions, which raises the question of whether he sees the current government, which won a landslide majority in last year’s general election, as ‘legitimate’.
Cllr Grimes and Mayor McGuinness have indulged in previous spats over X, most recently over weapon provision to Israel; Cllr Grimes dismissed McGuinness’s refusal for Israeli weapons to be funded using North East finances, emphasising the importance of weapon production in the North Eastern job market. McGuinness, whilst originally stressing the importance of North East resources in keeping civilians safe, has not yet responded to Grimes’s remark.
Darren Grimes has been contacted for comment.
Image credit: Dog1892 via Wikimedia Commons
