LABOUR has written to Prime Minister Boris Johnson to ask whether he agrees with his former aide’s “disturbing” views on race and forcing contraception on working-class people.

The party called for the government to explain how Andrew Sabisky, who resigned this week after his “offensive” writings were discovered online, was hired as a Downing Street special adviser.

In the letter to Mr Johnson, Labour chairman Ian Lavery wrote: “Andrew Sabisky has thankfully left your government.

“However, the disturbing nature of his previous comments on eugenics, race and women, which have been well documented in the press, raise very serious concerns about your own views.

“Furthermore, there are unanswered questions about how someone with such abhorrent views was ever considered for employment in the first place.”

Mr Lavery asked whether the PM agreed with Mr Sabisky’s views on ethnic minorities, pointing out that when Mr Johnson was editor of the Spectator, it had published an article by columnist Taki that claimed: “Orientals … have larger brains and higher IQ scores. Blacks are at the other pole."
 
Mr Sabisky wrote in a blog post in 2014 that whites in the United States have higher IQ than their black counterparts, who are “close to the typical boundary for mild mental retardation.”

In the same year, Mr Sabisky also posted on the website of Mr Johnson's special adviser Dominic Cummings that compulsory contraception should be imposed from puberty to prevent the emergence of a “permanent underclass.”

Labour is preparing to grill ministers in the Commons next Thursday over the decision to employ Mr Sabisky as a contractor.

Shadow Cabinet Office minister Jon Trickett has submitted more than 20 parliamentary questions about whether security vetting and processes were followed.

Mr Sabisky was not vetted, even though he attended meetings with senior defence officials and the PM, according to a government source.

His hiring came after Mr Cummings had appealed in a blog posting last month for “misfits and weirdos” to work in Downing Street.

One of Mr Trickett’s questions was whether Mr Cummings was involved in hiring Mr Sabisky despite special advisers being banned from recruiting staff.

Mr Trickett’s spokesman told the Star that he wants to know whether Mr Cummings had specifically hired contractors to “bring in staff when otherwise it would have been difficult to do so” because special advisers are also not allowed to line-manage civil servants.

Labour has also asked whether Mr Sabisky was paid with public money, what his daily rate was and whether the Cabinet Office approved his employment.