Diane Abbott has whip suspended over ‘deeply offensive’ comments on racism

Diane Abbott has had the Labour whip suspended and apologised after suggesting Irish people, Jews and Travellers do not experience racism.

The party moved quickly to confirm Abbott’s suspension, which leaves her sitting as an independent MP for Hackney North, after her comments in a letter to the Observer published today.

A party spokesperson said: “The Labour Party completely condemns these comments which are deeply offensive and wrong.

“The chief whip has suspended the Labour whip from Diane Abbott pending an investigation.”

Abbott had written a letter in response to a piece on racism experienced by Irish people, Jews and Travellers. She said that these groups and white people with “points of difference, such as redheads”, do “undoubtedly experience prejudice”.

But she claimed that they “are not all their lives subject to racism”.

She wrote: “In pre-civil rights America, Irish people, Jewish people and Travellers were not required to sit at the back of the bus. In apartheid South Africa, these groups were allowed to vote. And at the height of slavery, there were no white-seeming people manacled on the slave ships.”

On Sunday morning Abbott released a statement apologising, and saying that she wished to “wholly and unreservedly withdraw” her remarks and “disassociate” herself from them.

She said that “the errors arose in an initial draft being sent”, but that this was “no excuse”.

Abbott added: “Racism takes many forms, and it is completely undeniable that Jewish people have suffered its monstrous effects, as have Irish people, Travellers and many others.”

The Board of Deputies of British Jews released a statement calling her letter “disgraceful” and her apology “unconvincing”, backing the removal of the whip.

Momentum co-founder Jon Lansman, himself Jewish, similarly dubbed her words “disgraceful”, saying “racism is not a competition”.

Labour MP for Barking Margaret Hodge said her statement was “deeply offensive and deeply depressing”. The Jewish MP added that Labour leader Keir Starmer’s “response is right”, adding: “No excuses. No delays.”

But John McTernan, previously Tony Blair’s political secretary, called it a “swift and appropriate apology”, and it should be “accepted in the spirit it is offered”. Abbott, the first black woman ever elected to parliament, had been subjected to “vile racist abuse throughout her career”, he noted.