In 2019, Smith attracted condemnation when, shortly after citing antisemitism as one of her reasons for leaving Labour at the Independent Group launch earlier that day, she appeared on BBC Two's "Politics Live" where she referred to fighting racism as "not just about being black or a funny tin..." before hesitating and then finishing the sentence with "from the BME community": the unfinished word was widely taken to have been 'tinge'. She later issued a video statement in which she said she "misspoke very badly". Smith later told Sky News that she had been "very, very tired".