Good Morning Britain presenter Ranvir Singh has revealed that she has been told to resign from the ITV daytime show
Ranvir Singh came under fire on GMB (Image: ITV)
Ranvir Singh has disclosed that Good Morning Britain viewers have demanded she quit her position after she expressed her opinions about London’s far-right demonstration held by Tommy Robinson at the weekend. Yesterday, Ranvir shared her perspective and personal experience of being in London during Saturday’s far-right protests, disclosing she had to alter her plans for the safety of herself and her son. Today, she returned alongside Susanna Reid and Richard Madeley to discuss the consequences of speaking out on the ITV daytime programme.
“You’ve received a lot of feedback on that,” Susanna began, as Ranvir agreed. “A lot of reaction, 50/50 I’d say,” Ranvir said. “50% lots of date directed at me, wanting me to resign and things like that. It’s what happens when you speak out on anything like that.” She continued:”But half of people saying thank you for saying what you said because it resonated. And I just want to mention somebody called Wendy who’s DM’d me and is reflective of the vast majority in the middle, and I massively appreciate her getting in touch.”
Protestors took to the streets of London in a rally against immigration (Image: Getty)
Viewer Wendy said to Ranvir in her message: “Saw you on the TV, you were talking about the march that happened on Saturday. I’m sorry that you felt like you couldn’t do what you wanted to do that day. Me and my husband went to the March on Saturday.
“We just wanted to say that we are not racists or far-right. We’re just a normal couple that live in West Sussex with our 21 year old. We do not follow Tommy Robinson but he was the one who organised the march. If it was organised by someone else we still would have gone.
“People have got to the point where we’re not happy with the country the way it is or the way it’s going. Yes, we’re not happy about people coming over in boats but they could be coming from Norwegian countries and we still would have a problem with it,” the message continued.
“It’s about fairness,” as she concluded the message to Ranvir: “Loved you in Strictly.”
GMB’s Ranvir Singh has spoken in the aftermath of Saturday’s rally (Image: ITV)
In response, Ranvir told Richard and Susanna: “For me that was the kind of conversation I was trying to have yesterday. There’s a lot of people who are just feeling frustrated.
“It’s difficult for someone like me to speak up on controversial subjects because you do get a lot of hate. But it’s worth doing it when 100s of people have got in touch.
“A lot of the hate towards me was saying that it was a far-right rally, but that’s what we’re describing it as it’s the biggest far-right rally that’s been organised by the UK in our living memory.
“The idea that a lot of people hate the fact that it’s been called a far-right rally is not my problem,” she continued.
“That’s exactly the point I was making, that lots of people feel to go to things like that and follow people they might not really agree with because they don’t know where else to go with there concerns.”
Her remarks follow Sir Keir Starmer‘s rejection of the flag being utilised as a symbol of “violence, fear and division” following Tommy Robinson’s Unite The Kingdom demonstration on Saturday.
Between 110,000 and 150,000 individuals attended the rally, vastly surpassing organisers’ projections, whilst approximately 5,000 “anti-racism” activists staged a counter-demonstration.
This follows Ranvir discussing her weekend experiences during yesterday’s programme, stating: “It actually made me sad, because I think, I should be allowed to go into London and feel safe. You know, I live here, it’s my place. But I didn’t, I didn’t take my son in – that made me sad.
“You know, the fact that you think, ‘oh, it’s not safe for my little brown boy to be in London’ is a sad thing. But there you, pragmatic.
“Actually, it was interesting, at my local station, I was just queuing up to get a coffee, and the man in front of me was getting coffee from the guy who I think is Sri Lankan at the station,” she continued. “We all know him, he’s been there for years. And lovely, a really jolly chap, white guy, said, he said, ‘oh, I’m going into London, I’m going to join the Tommy Robinson march’. And he goes, you know, and we just started chatting, the three of us, you know, which is, I think, what you need to do, interestingly. You do need to talk to people when you feel that they’re on the opposite side to you.
“And he said, he said, ‘I’m just, I’m curious. I’m curious to know how fascist these people really are. And my brother’s a bit more far right. And I’m keeping an eye on him today’. He said, you know, I’ don’t know how the protest is going to go. The last one I went on was to remain during Brexit‘.
“I’m going to say he was a lovely man, even though he was going to a far-right march,” Ranvir went on.
“In my opinion, you’re going to support someone like Tommy Robinson. That makes me deeply uncomfortable. But the point is, you have to feel the pinch and still have a conversation with someone.”
She proceeded to clarify: “I cannot believe… I don’t want to believe that 150,000 people are out and out racists. That isn’t my experience of this country. In my head, I just can’t equate that monolith, that huge number of white faces with my experience in this country. It just doesn’t seem right to me.
“I worry about othering people who join the ranks and… the voice that they end up being spoken for and by is someone who is very extreme. So it was just to me, it was the nuance of it. And it’s very difficult because the point being that for someone, anybody of my colour skin today, you have to work against your instinct to fear.”
