5 days ago
Diane Abbott v the Labour Party
Photo by Daniel Leal-Olivas - WPA Pool / Getty Images
It has been over two years since Diane Abbott sent that letter to the Observer, in which she argued that while Irish, Jewish and Traveller people could experience 'prejudice', 'they are not all their lives subject to racism', comparing the impact on their lives to the prejudice faced by 'redheads'.
At the time, it looked as though that letter might have ended her political career. Having spent the first years of his Labour leadership attempting to purge the party of the anti-Semitism that had plagued it under his predecessor, Keir Starmer's response was swift. Abbott immediately had the Labour whip suspended – a suspension which lasted almost until the 2024 election, raising questions about whether she would even be allowed to stand again as a Labour candidate in Hackney North and Stoke Newington.
Abbott did stand, winning her tenth election to become the Mother of the House – the honorific for the longest-serving female MP – and a vocal critic of the government. If her letter had not been forgotten or forgiven, it appeared to have been brushed under the carpet, with all concerned thinking it more expedient to move on.
But Abbott herself seems to have other ideas. In an interview today (17 July) on BBC Radio 4's Reflections programme, she was asked about her comments in 2023 – and doubled down on them. 'Clearly, there must be a difference between racism which is about colour and other types of racism because you can see a Traveller or a Jewish person walking down the street, you don't know,' she said. 'I just think that it's silly to try and claim that racism which is about skin colour is the same as other types of racism. I don't know why people would say that.'
In the aftermath of the original row, Abbott withdrew her remarks and apologised 'for any anguish caused'. During her suspension, this apology was noted by those advocated for her to be readmitted into the Labour party. But asked today if she regretted the incident, Abbott responded: 'No, not at all.' The interview has sparked renewed backlash, with calls for her to be suspended again. The Labour Party has said it is looking at the interview 'incredibly seriously', with senior Labour sources saying she is likely to be suspended.
But we should not be surprised that Abbott does not regret what she said. Her memoir A Woman Like Me , published in September 2024, made it very clear what she thought about both the letter she wrote and how it was received. She wrote then that while her comments may have been 'ill-judged' and 'clumsy', she stood by them. As in the Reflections interview, she tries to make a distinction between visible and less visible characteristics that might put an individual at risk of a prejudice (an argument which is interesting to consider in light of the demographics of her constituency, which includes the Hasidic community in Stamford Hill whose members are highly identifiable as Jews).
Instead of an apology, this passage in the book is an apologia, a defence of the entire incident. The only error Abbott admits to being naïve about what the fall-out might be, which she takes as not a reaction to the implications of what she says but a personal attack: 'The vitriol of the response in the press and the public debate surprised me, although perhaps I should have known by that point not to be surprised by any attacks against me in the media.'
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If there are any doubts about whether her views might be interpreted as anti-Semitic, she argues these should be cast aside in light of her electoral success in such a Jewish seat: 'If I really did hate Jewish people, I think that after more than thirty years my neighbours and constituents would certainly have worked that out.' Today's interview echoes this argument: 'I do get a bit weary of people trying to pin the anti-Semitic label on me because I've spent a lifetime fighting racism of all kinds and in particular fighting anti-Semitism, partly because of the nature of my constituency.'
This was not a case Abbott made while the investigation into her comments was ongoing and she was waiting for the Labour Party to decide whether to restore the whip. There was some confusion over her status in the run-up to the election, with conflicting reports that Abbott had been banned from standing again for Labour (something she is understood to have found out herself via media reports) or that a deal was being brokered to give her back the whip on the understanding she would not seek re-election.
Whatever the plan may have been, it went awry – and the result was that Abbott did indeed stand again. If the Labour leadership expected gratitude on her part for this decision, they will have been disappointed. Discussing her book at the Cambridge Literary Festival in April this year, Abbott told the audience: 'I was elected for the tenth time last year, but that was no thanks to the people around Keir Starmer.'
'I could have stood down last year,' she continued, 'but I thought, F you, F you' – a line met with a round of applause. 'If I have to crawl back to parliament on my hands and knees, I'm going back.' Abbott did not choose to bring up the comments that had lead to her suspension in the first place. But had there been an audience question on it, the answer is right there in the book.
If she feels emboldened to maintain her side of the story now, it is no wonder. Abbott's position has clearly been strengthened by winning the row over whether she would be allowed to stand: as Mother of the House and a trail-blazing veteran MP, she regularly attacks the Government in the chamber on issues from Gaza to welfare spending, and has so far faced no sanction from her party. In a week in which four Labour MPs have lost the whip due to persistent disobedience, her comments today sent a message to the Labour leadership attempting to stamp out dissent on the backbenches: bring it on.
[Further reading: Why Keir Starmer has purged Labour rebels again]
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