An MP who resigned from the UK’s Labour Party citing “institutional racism” has been embroiled in a race row after she referred to people from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic backgrounds (BAME) as having a “funny tinge” after the launch of her new political grouping.

Angela Smith, who quit the Labour Party just hours earlier to create the anti-racist The Independent Group, faced widespread criticism on Monday over her comments about skin colour.

In a discussion on the BBC’s Politics Live show, Smith said that society needed to address the important debate rather than run away from it.

After speaking about BAME working-class women facing greater obstacles than other working-class women, the MP for Penistone and Stocksbridge said: “The recent history of the party I’ve just left suggests that it’s not just about being black or a funny tinge, you know, different, from the BAME community.”

Ash Sarkar, a political commentator from Novara Media, swiftly interjected: “A funny what?”

Neither Smith’s comment, or Sarkar’s interjection, were addressed by the BBC host.

Smith was swiftly criticised on Twitter by both her former Labour colleagues and political commentators, with Rupa Huq, a Labour MP saying: “They claim their new party is anti-racist and modern yet in the same breath describe black, Asian and minority ethnic people as having a ‘funny tinge’.

“This is, at best, the casual racism of the 1970s that I thought we’d long left behind. 

“It will strike many as an appalling, racist comment. Is the Independent Group going to investigate?”

“For a party that’s trying to project an image of being modern, and one of their rationales was being the anti-antisemitism party, this sort of casual racism that carelessly slips out is inexcusable.”@RupaHuq on comments by MP Angela Smith.

Read more: https://t.co/8cB2PW1cid pic.twitter.com/BqNeqj9070

— Sky News Politics (@SkyNewsPolitics) February 18, 2019

Owen Jones, a Guardian columnist and left-wing activist, said: “Wow. Just wow. Listen to how Angela Smith, one of the founders of the new party, describes BME (BAME) people.”

Wow. Just wow. Listen to how Angela Smith, one of the founders of the new party, describes BME people. pic.twitter.com/QJ4fG8o6OH

— Owen Jones (@OwenJones84) February 18, 2019

“Of course she’s not racist. Some of her best friends are a funny tinge,” wrote Aditya Chakrabortty.

Of course she’s not racist. Some of her best friends are a funny tinge.

— Aditya Chakrabortty (@chakrabortty) February 18, 2019

“The ‘funny tinge’ remark struck a nerve because it’s what many BAME people fear: that even those who don’t seem to be racist deep down think of us as different and ‘the other’ – of somehow not really belonging,” said Tom Kibasi, the director of IPPR, the Institute for Public Policy Research.

“Angela Smith seemed to validate that insecurity,” he added.

The ‘funny tinge’ remark struck a nerve because it’s what many BAME people fear: that even those who don’t seem to be racist deep down think of us as different and ‘the other’—of somehow not really belonging. Angela Smith seemed to validate that insecurity.

— Tom Kibasi (@TomKibasi) February 18, 2019

Smith apologised several hours later saying in a video on Twitter: “I have seen the clip from Politics Live, I am very sorry about any offence caused and I am very upset that I misspoke so badly.

“It’s not what I am, I am committed to fighting racism wherever I find it in our society,” she added.

I’m really sorry that I misspoke earlier on Politics Live – here’s my statement. pic.twitter.com/7csM95TFLo

— Angela Smith MP (@angelasmithmp) February 18, 2019

Smith was among seven MPs who resigned on Monday alleging Labour had been “hijacked by the machine politics of the hard left”, and accused Labour chief Jeremy Corbyn of failing to crack down on anti-semitism.

In a founding statement on its website, Smith, Chuka Umunna, Luciana Berger, Chris Leslie, Gavin Shuker, Mike Gapes and Ann Coffey  – who all back another referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union – said they would “pursue policies that are evidence-based, not led by ideology”.

Reacting to the announcement, Corbyn said he was “disappointed” that the group “felt unable to continue to work together for the Labour policies that inspired millions at the last election and saw us increase our vote by the largest share since 1945”.

“Now more than ever is the time to bring people together to build a better future for us all,” he added.

On Sunday, John McDonnell, Labour’s shadow chancellor, warned that a party split could prevent the opposition from getting into power.

Labour’s share of the vote increased by more than nine percent in the UK’s 2017 general election, with the party winning 262 seats in the 650-member Commons.

McDonnell told the BBC that it would be “like the 1980s” when the formation of the moderate Social Democratic party allowed Margaret Thatcher to stay on as prime minister.

“It basically installed Mrs Thatcher in power for that decade,” he said.

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan said on Tuesday that India “leveled allegations against Pakistan without any evidence” after New Delhi accused Pakistani spy agency of involvement in last week’s deadly attack on security forces in the disputed region of Kashmir.

“You accused the Pakistani government without providing any evidence, or saying what Pakistan stands to gain from this,” Khan said on Tuesday in a recorded statement.

The Pakistani prime minister said his government was ready to cooperate with India on the Kashmir attack investigation.

More than 40 Indian soldiers were killed in the suicide attack in Pulwama district, ratcheting up tensions with its nuclear-armed rival Pakistan.

“I am offering: if you want any kind of investigations … we are ready,” Khan said.

“If you have any actionable intelligence, give it to us, I guarantee that we will take action. And we will take action not because of [external] pressure, but because these people would be enemies of Pakistan. If anyone is acting from Pakistani soil, they are harming us.

India blames ISI

Top military commander in Indian-administered Kashmir on Tuesday accused Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) of “controlling” the attack claimed by a Pakistan-based armed group, Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM).

“It was being controlled from across by ISI and Pakistan and JeM commanders,” Indian Lieutenant-General KJS Dhillon said at a press conference in Srinagar, capital of Indian-administered Kashmir state.

The Pakistan prime minister said his country was “ready to talk” with India over “terrorism”.

“… this is a new Pakistan … and it is in our interest not to allow anyone from Pakistan to go abroad and carry out attacks…”

“If Pakistan was doing such an important conference and visit … what fool would sabotage their own conference and visit like this?” he said referring to the visit of Saudi Crown prince Mohammed bin Salman.

India has said it has “incontrovertible evidence” of Pakistani involvement in the attack – the worst in more than two decades.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, facing an election by May, has warned Pakistan to expect a “strong response” to the bombing, raising fears of conflict between the nuclear-armed neighbours.

Pakistan appeals to the UN

On Tuesday, Pakistan also appealed to the United Nations to intervene.

“It is with a sense of urgency that I draw your attention to the deteriorating security situation in our region resulting from the threat of use of force against Pakistan by India,” Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi wrote to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres.

“It is imperative to take steps for de-escalation. The United Nations must step in to defuse tensions,” he wrote, blaming India for deliberately ratcheting up its hostile rhetoric for domestic political reasons.

JeM, an armed group said to be based in Pakistan that wants the Muslim-majority Kashmir to be part of Pakistan, claimed responsibility but the Pakistani government has denied any involvement.

“Attributing it to Pakistan even before investigations is absurd,” Qureshi said.

“India must be asked to conduct an open and credible investigation on Pulwama incident,” he said.

Kashmir is at the heart of decades of hostility between India and Pakistan. They both claim it in full but rule it in part.

India withdrew trade privileges offered to Pakistan after the bomb attack and has warned of further action.

The United States had told India it supported its right to defend itself against cross-border attacks, India said on Saturday.

With tension mounting, Pakistan withdrew its envoy to India for consultations, a spokesman for Pakistan’s foreign ministry said on Twitter on Monday.

Calls for revenge

The Thursday bomb attack has sparked outrage in India with calls for revenge circulating on social media, and rising animosity towards Kashmiri Muslims in other parts of the Hindu-majority country, to the alarm of rights groups.

“We are at a dangerous moment, and authorities must do everything they can to uphold the rule of law,” said Aakar Patel, head of Amnesty India.

“Ordinary Kashmiris across India who are only seeking to improve their lives should not be singled out for violence simply because of where they come from.”

The anger has also spread to India’s two big obsessions: cricket and its Bollywood film industry.

Several cricket fans and a sport official have called on India to boycott a World Cup match against Pakistan in June, while the Cricket Club of India has covered up a portrait of Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan – himself a former cricketer – at its Mumbai office.

The All India Cine Workers Association called for a “total ban” on Pakistanis working in India’s film industry, though they have been largely blacklisted from Bollywood since a similar attack in Kashmir in 2016 in which 19 soldiers died.

In a tiny sliver of land along the Euphrates River in northern Syria, about 300 battle-hardened ISIL fighters are making a last stand, with just a “few days” remaining for the group’s total military defeat, according to US-backed Kurdish forces battling the fighters.

But US President Donald Trump – even while hailing an impending “100 percent victory” – has issued a threat that, if executed, could help the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group rise once again. 

In a flurry of tweets on Sunday, Trump demanded that his European allies “take back over 800 ISIS fighters we captured in Syria and put them on trial”. The alternative, he threatened, “is not a good one in that we will be forced to release them”.

If Europe fails to deal with the issue, ISIL could “permeate” the continent, he said, calling on Britain, France and Germany to “do the job they are so capable of doing”.

The slow-rolling crisis over foreign ISIL prisoners in Syria took on a new urgency, analysts say, because of Trump’s recent vow to pull US troops out of Syria. 

The announcement in December shocked US allies, prompting concern that an ill-planned withdrawal could lead to an ISIL resurgence. It also alarmed the US-allied Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the Kurdish-led troops battling ISIL in northeastern Syria, as the move increases the possibility of an assault on their territory by Turkey, which considers the SDF’s main YPG militia a terrorist organisation.

The SDF played a key role in the US-led coalition’s military offensive to drive ISIL out of cities and towns in eastern Syria, including Raqqa, the former capital of the group’s self-declared caliphate. In the process, the SDF captured thousands of ISIL fighters, detaining them in makeshift prisons around Ayn Issa in the Raqqa district and holding their children and wives in detention camps.

“We currently have thousands of foreign ISIS fighters and their family members, and it’s a big logistical problem,” said Kino Gabriel, spokesperson for the SDF.

“It’s a big burden,” he said, arguing that the self-imposed Kurdish administration in the region does not have the capacity to “secure the prisons and prevent ISIL fighters from escaping” or provide services to the women and children in their custody.

More than 1,000 ISIL prisoners in SDF detention were from Europe, he said, a number that amounts to more than a sixth of the total number of Europeans who left the continent to join the armed group, according to figures from the US-based think tank The Soufan Group.

The nearly 6,000 Europeans were among some 30,000 foreigners who arrived in the Middle East after ISIL declared its caliphate in Iraq’s second largest city of Mosul in 2014.

At its peak, the group controlled an area equivalent to the size of the United Kingdom, but following a military offensive against it by a US-led coalition in Syria and Iraq, ISIL lost nearly all of its territory and is now confined to the enclave around Baghouz village on the Euphrates.

‘Extremely difficult’ 

The fighters and their families are stuck in limbo, unwanted by their home countries and unlikely to receive a trial by the SDF, an armed group that Gabriel said did not have “the authority or the capacity” to prosecute detainees or hold them long-term.

While Gabriel did not comment on the number of detention centres holding ISIL fighters, the New York Times, quoting anonymous US and SDF officials, put the number at seven. Most of these temporary facilities, located around Ayn Issa, are former schools and old government buildings.

In addition to the makeshift prisons near Raqqa, there were at least four detainee facilities located near US army bases in the provinces of Deir Az Zor and Hasakah, according to Abdulnasser al-Ayed, a Syrian journalist who reports on the issue.

The US and the SDF have long urged European allies to take back ISIL fighters, and Gabriel said talks with European countries have been “ongoing for more than two years”.

But previous negotiations have ended without agreement, and only a handful of ISIL detainees – mostly women and children – have been repatriated to their countries of origin.

On Monday, Trump’s demand on repatriation of fighters was rejected by several countries in Europe, where returning ISIL members have carried out deadly assaults, including the 2015 attacks in Paris that killed more than 130 people, and the bombings in Brussels the next year that left 32 dead.   

A spokesperson for British Prime Minister Theresa May reiterated the UK’s stance that foreign fighters must be brought to justice “in the region where the crimes had been committed”. In France, which has taken the same stand as Britain, Justice Minister Nicole Belloubet told France 2 television that her government was “not changing our policy”.

And Heiko Maas, Germany’s foreign minister, told reporters in Brussels that organising repatriation of foreign fighters will “be extremely difficult” and said they can only “return if it is ensured they can immediately be taken into custody”.

Insufficient evidence

European governments would “prefer to delay the return [of ISIL recruits] or otherwise push the burden on others”, said Robert Wesley, president of the Austria-based Terrorism Research Initiative.

Outlining the factors for European reluctance, he said: “Firstly, public opinion is generally negative. Secondly, large numbers can quickly overwhelm judicial and security resources, especially if evidence of a committed crime is scarce or ambiguous, and there is a prospect of an early release into the public.”

The SDF said it did not have the capacity or the resources to conduct interrogations and obtain information needed to ensure successful prosecution, with Gabriel, the SDF spokesperson, also saying that many of the fighters in their custody had lived and fought mainly in Iraq.

Insufficient evidence could result in many fighters walking free from European prisons within a few years, said Martin Reardon of the Soufan Group. European countries faced a “real dilemma”, he said, noting: “You can’t say just because they were there and captured, they were a fighter.”

For a case against an ISIL returnee to stand in a European court, “You need witnesses or the person’s own testimony in court, or some sort of evidence to support that case,” he said. “If not, you have no recourse but to let them go … and if radicalised terrorists are set free and go on to stage attacks, the cost will be devastating.”

The likelihood of rehabilitating someone who was “involved in combat and killing is very slim”, Reardon said, adding conducting surveillance on freed ISIL detainees would be impossible because of the high cost involved.

International tribunal

Despite European reluctance to take back ISIL detainees, keeping them in SDF prisons and camps is not a long-term solution, said analysts. ISIL could attack such facilities to free detainees, especially in the confusion of a US withdrawal or a Turkish assault on the region.

“ISIS has a tradition of brazen and unexpected attacks on critical facilities, including prisons. Even if the US maintains a presence in northern Syria and supports the protection of prison facilities, such concentrations of fighters would continue to present a tempting target,” said Wesley of the Terrorism Research Initiative.

Ayed, the Syrian journalist, agreed. Predicting an attack “very soon”, he said: “They [ISIL] will want to free prisoners, especially with active cells in and around the area and with the US troop withdrawal looming.”

If the Europeans refused to take back the ISIL detainees, the SDF could hand them over to the Syrian government, which the group reportedly is in discussion with.

But in such a scenario, the Syrian government could “expose detainees to the most severe torture to obtain information,” said Nawaf Khalil, director of the Germany-based Centre for Kurdish Studies. Others said the government was also likely to execute ISIL fighters, even though the European Union opposes the death penalty.

Khalil said the only remaining option was to set up an international court to consider each detainee’s case with the aim of repatriating them after a trial.

Gabriel, the SDF spokesperson, said talks with the coalition and the US army to set up such a system were under way.

“This court can take responsibility for the interrogation of those terrorists and to take all the information needed from their countries to be able to prosecute them … and then give them the sentences that they need or deserve for the crimes that they have committed.”

For now, despite Trump’s threat, the SDF does not plan to release its ISIL prisoners. 

“We know the terrifying things and the crimes they ave committed against the people of Syria and Iraq,” Gabriel said. “It is in our best interest not to let them go because we faced the horrors that they’re capable of – and we don’t want it to happen to any other human being.”

Sixteen states in the United States have filed a lawsuit against President Donald Trump‘s national emergency declaration to fund his promised wall along the country’s border with Mexico.

The suit filed in US District Court for the Northern District of California on Monday, a US government holiday, came as thousands of people rallied nationwide to protest against the Republican’s move last week.

In a statement, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said the lawsuit alleges the Trump administration’s action violates the Constitution.

“President Trump treats the rule of law with utter contempt,” Becerra said. “He knows there is no border crisis, he knows his emergency declaration is unwarranted, and he admits that he will likely lose this case in court.”

Becerra had previously said his state and others had legal standing because they risked losing money intended for military projects, disaster assistance and other purposes.

Joining California in filing the lawsuit against the Republican president’s administration are the attorneys general of Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, and Virginia.

‘National disgrace’

Trump declared a national emergency after Congress declined to meet his request for $5.7bn to fulfill his 2016 election campaign promise of completing the wall.

The move allows the president to bypass Congress to use money from the Pentagon and other budgets.

The lawsuit against Trump on Monday argues he does not have the power to divert the funds because Congress is in charge of spending.

On Friday, three Texas landowners and an environmental group filed the first lawsuit against Trump’s move, saying it violates the Constitution and would infringe on their property rights.

The legal challenges could slow down Trump’s efforts to build the wall, which he says is needed to check irregular immigration and drug trafficking, but will likely end up at the conservative-leaning Supreme Court.

Several Republican senators have decried the emergency declaration, saying it establishes a dangerous precedent and amounts to executive overreach.

“President Trump is manufacturing a crisis and declaring a made-up ‘national emergency’ in order to seize power and undermine the Constitution,” California Governor Gavin Newsom said in a statement on Monday.

“This ’emergency’ is a national disgrace.”

However, John Fredericks, a syndicated radio talk show host and member of the Trump 2020 campaign advisory board, said Trump’s declaration is justified.

“This is an emergency and the president is ultimately going to be successful in securing about an additional $8bn towards the barrier and the wall that he’s advocated for,” Fredericks told Al Jazeera.

“This is a frivolous lawsuit brought by the six democratic states that basically want an open border situation so they can have additional people come into the US – undocumented, illegal and eventually turn into democratic voters. That’s what this argument is about. Everybody sees through it.

“The amount of illegal immigration crossings with these caravans coming up is increased dramatically. We have gangs, we have violence, we have drugs,” Fredericks added.