Diane Abbott is facing suspension from the Labour Party yet again after refusing to retract controversial claims that Jewish people experience racism differently from Black people, reigniting tensions over antisemitism in a constituency home to one of Britain’s largest Jewish communities.
The veteran MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington told BBC Radio 4’s Reflections programme on Wednesday that she had “no regrets” about comments that led to her year-long suspension in 2023, when she suggested Jewish, Irish and Traveller people experience only “prejudice” rather than racism.
Labour moved swiftly to investigate the remarks, with a party spokesman confirming: “There is no place for antisemitism in the Labour Party. We take these comments incredibly seriously, and will assess them in line with Labour Party’s rules and procedures.
Senior Labour sources indicated the 71-year-old MP is now expected to lose the whip after “doubling-down on something she previously had the whip withdrawn for”. One Labour insider told The Times: “She shouldn’t be immune because she’s the Mother of the House.
Abbott’s original suspension came after she wrote to The Observer in April 2023 claiming that whilst Jewish, Irish and Traveller people “undoubtedly experience prejudice”, this was “similar” to discrimination faced by “white people with points of difference, such as redheads. The letter drew immediate condemnation from Jewish groups and Sir Keir Starmer, who called the remarks “antisemitic.
Despite withdrawing the comments and apologising “for any anguish caused”, Abbott stood by her position during Wednesday’s BBC interview. “Clearly, there must be a difference between racism which is about colour and other types of racism,” she said. “You don’t know unless you stop to speak to them or you’re in a meeting with them. But if you see a black person walking down the street, you see straight away that they’re black. They are different types of racism.”
The controversy is particularly sensitive given Abbott’s constituency includes Stamford Hill, home to Europe’s largest strictly Orthodox Jewish community. The area recorded 113 antisemitic incidents last year—an average of more than two attacks per week.
Rabbi Avraham Pinter, a former Labour councillor in Stamford Hill, had previously defended Abbott but criticised her for being “totally out of touch with the reality” of Jewish concerns about antisemitism. To suggest that we are not concerned about what has happened in the Labour Party or think they have done enough is false,” he said.
Fiona Sharpe, spokesperson for Labour Against Antisemitism, expressed disappointment that Britain’s first Black female MP had been “reduced to not knowing the difference between the Israel Defence Force and ‘Jewish Defence Forces'”—a reference to Abbott’s recent deleted social media post about Gaza.
The Jewish Chronicle reported that Abbott was given a “formal warning” by Labour’s National Executive Committee in December 2023 after completing an online antisemitism awareness course. She was readmitted to the party just before the 2024 general election, where she retained her seat with 24,355 votes.
Abbott’s stance contradicts her own previous statements. In 2018, during the height of Labour’s antisemitism crisis under Jeremy Corbyn, she insisted: “For me, it has always been the case that racism includes anti-Semitism. Jew hatred is race hatred, and one anti-Semite in the Labour party is one too many.
The Board of Deputies has consistently raised concerns about Abbott’s approach to antisemitism. She faced criticism for attending events with expelled Labour members accused of antisemitism and for allowing a motion at her constituency party meeting in 2019 that denied Labour was institutionally antisemitic, reportedly leaving Jewish members “in tears.
Dame Margaret Hodge, a Jewish Labour MP, previously called Abbott’s original letter “deeply offensive and deeply depressing” and supported her suspension with “no excuses, no delays”.
Friends, Families and Travellers condemned Abbott’s comments as demonstrating “the constant erasure of Irish Traveller, Romany Gypsy and Roma people’s daily experiences of racism and discrimination”, calling them “utterly inexcusable.
The timing of Abbott’s remarks is particularly fraught, coming just weeks after she deleted a tweet referring to the “Jewish Defence Forces” instead of the Israel Defence Forces, which Jewish groups condemned as harking back to “medieval libels about Jews.
Labour MP David Taylor responded to the latest controversy, saying: “This isn’t a slip of the tongue, it’s a slip of the mask. Language like this fans the flames of antisemitism and puts Jewish communities in the UK at risk.
Abbott, who became Britain’s first Black female MP in 1987 and is now Mother of the House as the longest continuously serving female MP, has faced decades of racist abuse herself. According to Amnesty International, she receives almost a third of all abusive tweets directed at Black and Asian women MPs.
However, Jewish groups argue this does not excuse minimising antisemitism. As one Stamford Hill resident of mixed Roma and Jewish heritage told the Jewish Chronicle: “Wait until my dear parents hear that their friends in Austria, as well as six million of their brothers and sisters, were systematically murdered because of ‘prejudice’.”
The Labour Party faces pressure to act decisively as it seeks to demonstrate its commitment to tackling antisemitism following the Corbyn era. Abbott’s political ally Jeremy Corbyn remains barred from standing as a Labour candidate after his own suspension over antisemitism.
Abbott’s office has not responded to requests for comment about her potential suspension.
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Image Credit:
Diane Abbott at Corbyn leadership rally, August 2016 – Photo by Rwendland, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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