By: Chandrashekar Bhat
Richard Lynton-Jones complained that the baroness had called him “waste of a man’s white skin” during an exchange of WhatsApp messages after a yacht crash off Monaco in 2019.
Baroness Mone, 49, however, denied being racist and insisted that she believed he was a “white British”.
According to her representatives, she thought Lynton-Jones had “no trace whatsoever of non-white colouring or any features that would not suggest he was white”.
Lynton-Jones, whose grandparents came to the UK from India after the Second World War, said he was surprised by her defence.
“She has lied through her back teeth… She knows very clearly I’m half-Indian. She knew I was racially attacked in Majorca in 2007 – I was beaten to a pulp,” he told MailOnline over the weekend.
He said he was “good friends” with her husband Doug Barrowman and added, “We’d met probably 50 times and I’ve been to their home on the Isle of Man”.
Baroness Mone made the alleged racist remarks after a crew member was killed in an accident involving the banker’s yacht and Barrowman’s boat. She accused him and his partner of partying “without remorse” after the incident.
“You & your mental loony of a girlfriend have been parting like mad! … Your a low life, a waste of a mans white skin so don’t give us your lies. Your a total disgrace (sic),” the Tory peer said in her alleged messages sent to Lynton-Jones, which were first reported by The Guardian.
“Now you deal with the police enquiries including your nut case bird”.
Lynton-Jones replied to her outburst, reminding her comments were racist and denied that he and his partner were insensitive to the death.
He took the matter to the House of Lords commissioner for standards who did not take any action, saying the messages were not sent in the course of Baroness Mone’s parliamentary duties.
After the banker’s complaint became public, the Liberal Democrat peer Lord Strasburger called for Baroness Mone’s resignation.
“There is something seriously wrong with the Lords’ code of conduct if it prevents the commissioner for standards from investigating the alleged bad behaviour by a peer outside their parliamentary duties. On that basis, a lord could prove themselves to be a completely unfit person to make the laws of the land but suffer no consequences because their misbehaviour was outside parliament. That can’t be right and needs to be fixed”, he told The Guardian.
However, Baroness Mone questioned the allegation of racism, claiming that she “called out” Lynton-Jones’ “white privilege”.
“Since when did calling out a man for his actions after manslaughter and his entitled white privilege constitute racism? Quite the opposite – the accusations I have read today against me are full of contradictions. I will set the record straight on this defamation before deciding on any legal action,” she wrote in an Instagram post.
