On 17 October, senior political correspondent at the Daily Express Christian Calgie joked about British citizen Zarah Sultana being deported:

Calgie has now apologised for this blatant racism and seemingly blamed his response on ‘poor mental health’:

I wish to apologise to Zarah Sultana MP for my inappropriate response to a message on X. It was wrong of me to do so and I am sorry.

Taking a break from X to prioritise my mental health.

— Calgie (@christiancalgie) October 18, 2025

History of an apology to Zarah Sultana

Zarah Sultana isn’t known for letting attacks slide, so it’s no surprise she responded to Calgie as follows:

A mainstream “journalist” calling for a British MP to be deported. Is it because I’m Muslim? Next time, just say it with your chest.

They’ll tell you fascism in this country is a working-class phenomenon. That’s a lie.

It’s the ruling class, and their snivelling lackeys like Christian here, who want us divided.

Don’t let them win.

Given that Keir Starmer has spent the past few days defending the feelings of Israeli football hooligans, you’d think he’d want to weigh in. Alas, Starmer did not consider this matter worthy of attention, although he has been happy to imply Birmingham councillors and police officers are antisemites for barring – *CHECKS NOTES* – violent Israeli ultras with a history of smashing up European cities and chanting racist abuse.

There were at least some Labour MPs who called out this obvious xenophobia:

This is a horrendous thing to say about a British born Muslim MP. We can disagree with people’s politics without resorting to crass racism like this. This is the parliamentary reporter for the @Daily_Express https://t.co/EqdJ6rodMF

— Josh Fenton-Glynn MP (@JoshFG) October 17, 2025

Richard Burgon also weighed in:

Absolutely vile. And from the Senior Political Correspondent at The Daily Express. Solidarity, Zarah. https://t.co/2K4npZHAlX

— Richard Burgon MP (@RichardBurgon) October 17, 2025

Activist Mukhtar, meanwhile, had this to say:

Mental health is no excuse for racism. He also didn’t care about Zarah Sultana’s mental health. She gets abused daily by people like him. pic.twitter.com/bDCOEysNTA

— Mukhtar (@I_amMukhtar) October 18, 2025

Mental health

Calgie has previously called for protesters to be “shot on sight”:

Imagine the furore if Zarah Sultana had said right-wing protesters should be “shot on sight”.

It’s getting hard to remember, but there was a period when media figures understood this stuff looks unhinged. You may be tempted to laugh at Calgie’s ‘mental health’ response, but there is a growing mental health problem on the right. Ever since Elon Musk bought Twitter and turned off the guard rails, these people have been able to say anything they like – all day, every day – and we’re seeing what that does to their brains.

Simultaneously, we’re experiencing what it’s doing to our politics.

While you can’t pin everything on Musk’s Twitter, we’ve obviously lurched rightwards in the past few years, and the policies that Western governments are enacting are clearly closer to online discourse than public opinion.

We don’t want to say that Calgie is a victim, as it seems like the only thing he’s lost is his filter. There are definitely actual victims in all this, though, whether it’s the non-white British citizens who are targeted, or the broader British public who will see living standards fall because politicians care more about winning online culture wars than reversing decline.

‘Graceless’

Zarah Sultana found further fault with Calgie’s face-saving apology:

“Inappropriate”? I think the word you’re looking for is racist?

If you’re going to apologise, don’t do it mealy-mouthed. Go and educate yourself.

And your employer, the Daily Express, could start by actually apologising and providing you with some anti-racism training.

You’d think that politicians and journalists on the political right might have used this moment for self-reflection – to ask themselves ‘have we become the frothing National Front thugs of the 1980s?‘. Instead, they’re telling Sultana off for fearlessly calling out their bullshit:

Hard to imagine a more graceless response to an obviously sincere apology. https://t.co/ljjr3aQLT4

— Daniel Hannan (@DanielJHannan) October 18, 2025

This guy is a lord, by the way.

Alex Jones associate Paul Joseph Watson highlighted what we’re saying above; that they see Musk’s Twitter as an accountability-free-zone:

It’s not 2020, mate. https://t.co/1igjhIBEMn

— Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) October 18, 2025

We suspect Calgie stepped over the line of what even the Express thinks it can get away with, which is why he had to apologise.

Stand up – like Zarah Sultana has

People might be able to get away with saying anything on Twitter, but Twitter is not the real world, and these people are increasingly detached from reality. The right can call Zarah Sultana ‘graceless’ all they want, but we all know things would only get worse if she didn’t call them out.

Featured image via Daily Express (YouTube) / Novara (YouTube)

By Willem Moore

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