The former Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie will not return to the paper after being suspended for writing a column comparing the footballer Ross Barkley, who is mixed race, to a gorilla and making disparaging comments about the city of Liverpool.

Officially, News UK, the parent company of the Sun, has said MacKenzie, a longstanding ally of Rupert Murdoch who edited the Sun between 1981 and 1994 and has written a weekly column since 2015, “remains suspended”.

However, it is understood that MacKenzie will not return to work for the paper and is negotiating exit terms.

According to sources with knowledge of the discussions, driven by the News UK chief executive, Rebekah Brooks, his departure is planned to be announced after Merseyside police report back on the outcome of an investigation into a complaint that the column constituted a racial hate crime.

One source said MacKenzie was told in a meeting last month that he will “never write for the Sun again” and has “been fired”.

MacKenzie has an office at News UK’s London Bridge headquarters and Murdoch holds an investment in his financial advice website.

According to sources Nick Ferrari, who has a weekday radio show on LBC, is being considered to take over MacKenzie’s Sun column.

Ferrari, who has a column in the Sunday Express, is a friend of MacKenzie. The pair worked together at L!ve TV, the short-lived foray into TV made by the publisher of the Daily Mirror in the 1990s.

If News UK were to sign up Ferrari it is likely that the company would also have to consider poaching him from LBC, giving him a radio show on TalkSport, which Murdoch’s company acquired last year in a £220m deal.

Last month, MacKenzie was suspended by the Sun after he wrote in his column that he was not surprised that Barkley, whose grandfather is Nigerian, was punched in a nightclub because he was similar to an animal in a zoo. He also said the only other men in Liverpool who earned similar amounts of money to the Everton player were drug dealers.

News of MacKenzie’s potential departure was reported by the Financial Times on Monday.

Liverpool’s mayor, Joe Anderson, reported MacKenzie to police for what he said were “racial slurs” and Everton banned Sun journalists from its stadium. Merseyside police are continuing their inquiries into the incident.

News UK apologised for MacKenzie’s comments and the Sun removed the article from its website on the afternoon of Friday 14 April, the day it was published. In a written apology to Barkley in the Sun, the newspaper said it had been “unaware of Ross Barkley’s heritage and there was never any slur intended”.

News UK is part of News Corp, which is controlled by the Murdoch family. They also control 21st Century Fox, which is attempting to acquire the 61% of broadcaster Sky that it does not already own.

In the US, the Murdochs are dealing with allegations of sexual harassment at Fox News, which have led to the exits of the Fox News chairman Roger Ailes and leading presenter Bill O’Reilly.

On Monday, Wendy Walsh, one of the women who has accused O’Reilly of sexual harassment, met the UK media regulator, Ofcom, to call for Fox to be blocked from taking full control of Sky.



The lawyer Lisa Bloom, who is representing Walsh and three other women who claim sexual harassment or discrimination at 21st Century Fox, said Ofcom should rule that Murdoch would not be a “fit and proper” owner of Sky.

“It’s phone hacking part two,” she said. “As with phone hacking in the UK, this Murdoch-owned company has stood by senior staff they knew had acted illegally or immorally. By my count, Fox News currently faces lawsuits filed by 19 different employees alleging sexual and racial harassment and retaliation.

“We want the British regulator to understand the corporate governance failures at that company. We both very strongly believe that Fox should not be allowed to take full ownership of Sky.”

A spokesperson for News UK said MacKenzie remains suspended and declined to comment on whether he would leave the organisation.

Speaking last month about the outcry over his comments, MacKenzie said: “I had no idea of Ross Barkley’s family background and nor did anybody else. For the mayor of Liverpool and a handful of others to describe the article as racist is beyond parody.”

In the column, MacKenzie wrote: “Perhaps unfairly, I have always judged Ross Barkley as one of our dimmest footballers. There is something about the lack of reflection in his eyes which makes me certain not only are the lights not on, there is definitely nobody at home.

“I get a similar feeling when seeing a gorilla at the zoo. The physique is magnificent but it’s the eyes that tell the story. So it came as no surprise to me that the Everton star copped a nasty right-hander in a nightclub for allegedly eyeing up an attractive young lady who, as they say, was ‘spoken for’.

“The reality is that at £60,000 a week and being both thick and single, he is an attractive catch in the Liverpool area, where the only men with similar pay packets are drug dealers and therefore not at nightclubs, as they are often guests of Her Majesty.”

Joe Anderson, the mayor of Liverpool, said reports of MacKenzie’s departure from the Sun will bring a “sense of relief and celebration on the streets of Liverpool”.



MacKenzie has been a controversial figure in Merseyside since the Sun published a front page with the headline the “The Truth” after 96 Liverpool fans died in the

Hillsborough disaster in 1989.

“There will be a sense of relief and celebration on the streets of Liverpool this morning as, at last, news is emerging that Kelvin MacKenzie is to be sacked by the Sun newspaper,” Anderson said.

“As happy as we are that this dinosaur has finally been sent on his way, there is an overwhelming feeling that it has come 28 years too late. News International have always misjudged the consequences of MacKenzie’s bile. His “Truth” headlines were at the very heart of the 27 year miscarriage of justice, yet his employers continued to provide a platform for him to boast his vicious views.

“It is only now, after a police investigation and formal complaints to the Independent Press Standards Organisation that they have finally taken action.”