Webcam debate: What should Cameron do next?

The MP sacked from the Conservative front bench after telling Times Online that it was normal for an ethnic minority serviceman to be called a “black bastard” has been recruited by Britain’s racial equality chief.

Patrick Mercer, a former soldier who was dismissed as Shadow Homeland Security Minister hours after the interview was published, last March, has been hired to help with a scheme in which ethnic minority military officers will work with youths to try to prevent them joining gangs.

The initiative is being run by Sir Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality and Human Rights, who went on record to welcome Mr Mercer’s dismissal by David Cameron. He believes that Mr Mercer could make a contribution thanks to his contacts in the Army and the City and his history tackling gang problems as a constituency MP.

Sir Trevor wants a number of leading black servicemen and police chiefs to act as mentors for youngsters from poor areas whose horizons are limited.

He has met Mr Mercer to discuss the scheme and is believed to have told him that he did not agree with his remarks but wanted him involved.

Other senior figures being recruited include Air Commodore David Case, the highest-ranking black officer in the Armed Forces, and Tarique Ghaffur, an assistant commissioner in the Metropolitan Police.

Mr Mercer, a former colonel in the Worcestershire and Sherwood Foresters, confirmed his involvement but denied that it was because he was trying to atone for the race row last March.

“It all sounds as if I am trying a bit too hard but this is one of a number of projects like this that I have been involved in,” he said. “This is just the work I am getting on with as part of the broad remit of a backbench Member of Parliament who happens to have a great interest in these things.”

Mr Mercer, MP for Newark, said that he had worked with Skillforce, a charity that gets former service personnel to work with pupils from deprived areas, since he was first elected.

In the interview last March he described an anti-racism body being formed by servicemen from former colonial countries as “utter rot”. He said that racial abuse, such as derogatory comments about facial features, hair colour and weight, was common in the Army and to be expected.

“I had the good fortune to command a battalion that was racially very mixed,” he said. “Towards the end, I had five company sergeant majors who were all black. They were, without exception, Nottingham-born men who were English — as English as you and me.

“They prospered inside my regiment, but if you’d said to them, ‘Have you ever been called a nigger?’, they would have said ‘Yes’. But equally, a chap with red hair, for example, would also get a hard time — a far harder time than a black man, in fact.

“That’s the way it is in the Army. If someone is slow on the assault course, you’d get people shouting, ‘Come on you fat bastard, come in you ginger bastard, come on you black bastard’.”

Mr Mercer also said that he knew soldiers from ethnic minority backgrounds who were “idle and useless” and used racism as a cover.

After being dismissed, he issued a statement saying: “The offence I have obviously caused is deeply regretted. What I have said is clearly misjudged.”

Times Recommends

• 5 Christmas romance confessions
• Has champagne lost its sparkle?
• Your tailor-made Christmas