David Starkey attacks 'victim status' of ethnic minorities and disabled, accuses Baroness Lawrence of treating black people as victims

Historian has been labelled a bigot following a controversial interview

David Starkey has accused Baroness Doreen Lawrence of treating black people as victims (Getty)

David Starkey has accused Baroness Doreen Lawrence of "constantly" treating black people as victims and attacked the ‘victim status’ of ethnic minorities, Muslims and the disabled.

The outspoken historian gave a controversial interview to The Telegraph, where he suggested black people, the Muslim community and the disabled should refuse to be labelled victims.

He claimed campaigners such as Baroness Lawrence, the mother of murdered Stephen Lawrence, are perpetuating the status of black people as victims.

The 70-year-old suggested some black American civil rights leaders have “espoused victimhood and violence” instead of working towards equality in the peaceful direction advocated by leaders such as Martin Luther King.

Doreen Lawrence, murdered teenager Stephen's mother (AFP/Getty Images)

“I think to a dangerous extent that has happened in this country,” he said. “With all the praise that’s lavished on [Baroness] Doreen Lawrence, she’s constantly treating blacks as victims.”

All forms of liberation, he added, depend upon the person refusing to be a victim. He claimed there is now “this perpetual procession of people - group after group - wanting to assume the status of victim”, describing it as “catastrophic”.

The “cry of Islamaphobia”, he added, is attempting to make Muslims into victims “and therefore somehow privileged and exempt.”

“All forms of liberation – and I speak as gay and I was in all this when it wasn’t fashionable, when you didn’t get your CBE for being a prominent poofter, when there were actual penalties for doing it – all of them depend upon you taking control,” he said.

His remarks saw him branded a "racist" and "bigot" by appalled social media users.

Starkey told the newspaper that he was born “quite seriously disabled" and lambasted the way in which he believes the disabled are “presented perpetually as victims”. He was born with two club feet and underwent a number of surgeries.

He later digressed onto the genetic difference between men and women, where he claimed scientific evidence suggested there are "different distributions of intelligence" between men and women. "Women tend to cluster more around the mean, men are either very, very bright or very thick."