LONDON • British government minister Jacob Rees-Mogg apologised on Tuesday after he suggested that victims of the blaze at London’s Grenfell Tower should have used common sense to ignore firefighters’ instructions to stay in the burning building.

An official inquiry into the catastrophic chain of events in June 2017 that turned a kitchen fire into an inferno that killed 71 people found that combustible cladding contributed to the tragedy – and also questioned fire brigade advice to stay put.

“If you just ignore what you’re told and leave, you are so much safer,” Mr Rees-Mogg, leader of Britain’s House of Commons, told LBC radio on Monday. “And I think if either of us were in a fire, whatever the fire brigade said, we would leave the burning building. It just seems the common sense thing to do.”

Families of the victims and opposition lawmakers criticised Mr Rees-Mogg’s remarks, with opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn labelling the comments “crass and insensitive”. On Tuesday, Mr Rees-Mogg said he “profoundly apologised”.

Mr Martin Moore-Bick, the retired judge leading the inquiry into the blaze, said commanders had stuck for too long with the “stay put” strategy, which meant residents calling the emergency services as the tower burned were advised to remain in their apartments and await rescue. He said there would have been fewer fatalities if an evacuation order had been given an hour or more earlier.

In his apology, Mr Rees-Mogg said he had meant to say he also would have followed the fire brigade’s advice at the time, but with hindsight it was clear the advice went against common sense.

“What’s so sad is that the advice given overrides common sense because everybody would want to leave a burning building,” he said. “I would hate to upset the people of Grenfell if I was unclear in my comments. With hindsight and after reading the report, no one would follow that advice. That’s the great tragedy.”

The blaze at Grenfell Tower, a 23-storey social housing block, threw up a raft of questions about how the building had been allowed to become a tinderbox.

Asked whether the race and class of the victims had played a role, Mr Rees-Mogg said those factors had nothing to do with it. But critics of Mr Rees-Mogg and his Conservative Party said his comments illustrated that the divisions in British society were starker than ever ahead of a national election on Dec 12.

The Fire Brigades Union said the “stay put” policy was designed for circumstances when an evacuation was not safe and had saved countless lives in the past.

REUTERS

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