Rishi Sunak ducks questions about royal ‘race’ row saying it isn’t ‘right’ for him to comment – as he attends COP28 summit with King Charles

Rishi Sunak has ducked questions on the royal ‘race’ row today as he attended the COP28 summit with King Charles.

The PM insisted that it would not be ‘right’ for him to comment, pointing to the ‘longstanding and appropriate’ convention that ministers do not talk about the Royal Family.

Asked about the raging row over Omid Scobie’s book by journalists en route to Dubai, Mr Sunak said: ‘By longstanding and appropriate convention it wouldn’t be right for me to talk about the royal family in any way shape or form.’

But the premier did heap praise on the King, saying he was ‘delighted’ the monarch is at the global climate summit and hailing ‘the respect that he’s got on this issue around the world’. 

Scobie took the extraordinary step of swearing on his own life, and his family’s, on live TV last night that the naming of two royals in the Dutch version of Endgame is not a ‘stunt’ to shift more copies of his book.

Rishi Sunak insisted that it would not be ‘right’ for him to comment, pointing to the ‘longstanding and appropriate’ convention that ministers do not talk about the Royal Family

Mr Sunak did heap praise on the King (pictured today), saying he was ‘delighted’ the monarch is at the global climate summit and hailing ‘ the respect that he’s got on this issue around the world’

Mr Scobie, 42, said he was ‘hurt’ by the suggestion and dismissed it as a conspiracy theory by people who want to believe that he is ‘in cahoots’ with Meghan Markle, declaring: ‘It couldn’t be further from the truth’.

He also refused to apologise for the racism scandal that has erupted, claiming: ‘I’m as frustrated as everyone else. The book I wrote, the book I edited, the book I signed off on, did not have names in it’.

But questions about whether he put the names in remain because one of the Dutch translators told MailOnline yesterday: ‘The names of the royals were there in black and white. I did not add them’.

Speaking to Victoria Derbyshire on BBC Two’s Newsnight, Mr Scobie was asked to say ‘hand on heart’ that the farrago over the Dutch translation was not a PR stunt. He raised his hands, shaking his head, and replied: ‘On my life, on my family’s life.’ Ms Derbyshire said: ‘You don’t have to go that far, it’s fine’.

Scobie then said: ‘No it’s serious because I feel hurt by some of the things I’ve seen that have suggested a conspiracy theory, that this is some kind of publicity stunt, and ‘I’m in cahoots with my pal [Meghan]’ and nonsense like that because it feeds into something that couldn’t be further from the truth’.

Victoria then said: ‘In some version you must have written the names in and the wrong version has potentially gone to the people in charge of the rights around the world, I suppose’. Mr Scobie didn’t respond.

It came as media organisations around the world, including the BBC, ITV, The Guardian and The Times, named the two royals accused of asking about Archie’s skin colour as King Charles and his daughter-in-law Kate.

In a tense interview on the BBC’s Newsnight, Omid Scobie declared: ‘It’s not for me to apologise because I still want to know what’s happened.’

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