Abbott suspended by Labour AGAIN after no regret over Jewish racism remarks

Diane Abbott has been administratively suspended from the Labour Party after she doubled-down on comments about racism for Jewish and Black people.

A Labour Party spokesperson confirmed on Thursday: “Diane Abbott has been administratively suspended from the Labour Party, pending an investigation. We cannot comment further while this investigation is ongoing.”

In an interview broadcast by BBC Radio 4 on Thursday, the veteran MP  said she did not regret arguing people of colour experienced racism “all their lives”, unlike the “prejudice” experienced by Jewish people, Irish people and Travellers, in a letter published by The Observer in 2023.

Deputy  Prime Minister Angela Rayner had said it was “not good” Abbott backtracked over the earlier apology when asked about the veteran MPs latest comments.

Confirming she was “disappointed” by Abbott’s actions, Rayner added: “There’s no place for antisemitism in the Labour party, and obviously the Labour party has processes for that.

“Diane had reflected on how she’d put that article together, and said that ‘was not supposed to be the version’, and now to double down and say: ‘Well, actually I didn’t mean that. I actually meant what I originally said,’ I think it is a real challenge.”

It is understood Abbott’s administrative suspension by the Labour, pending investigation, has the automatic effect of suspending the Labour whip in the House of Commons.

The Hackney North and Stoke Newington MP was suspended by the Labour Party in 2023 after the Observer letter sparked an outcry.

Jewish News also spoke to one senior Labour source earlier on Thursday who called for the party to take action against the Hackney North MP adding: “You can’t double down on something you previously got suspended for, and think you can get away with it.”

A Jewish Labour Movement spokesperson added: “Antisemitism is anti-Jewish racism.

“It targets Jews regardless of how they look, and many of our community are visibly Jewish and suffer racism for it. We are disappointed that Diane Abbott MP has doubled down on comments she previously appeared to apologise for, and are pleased to hear that Labour are looking into them.”

Abbott, who was disciplined for writing a letter on the topic to the Observer in April 2023, was asked if she regretted the incident during the interview on BBC Radio 4.

She said: “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.

“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.”

Rayner, who stressed she was not responsible for the party’s disciplinary proceedings, later criticised Abbott comments saying: “For me at the time, there was a clarification and an understanding that was said quite clearly: ‘That I understand what I said was not right and not correct.’ To then go back on that and say: ‘Well, actually I didn’t agree with me doing that apology, and explaining why I didn’t mean those things,’ and say: ‘Well I actually did mean them,’ I think that’s not good.”

During the latest BBC interview Abbott, who has the honorary title mother of the house as the longest-serving female MP in the Commons, said she felt “a bit weary” of people labelling her antisemitic.

She had “spent a lifetime fighting racism of all kinds and in particular fighting antisemitism, partly because of the nature of my constituency”.

Asked whether she felt she had been “hung out to dry” by the Labour leadership during the disciplinary process relating to her remarks, she said: “In the end, Keir Starmer had to restore the whip to me.”

Abbott was readmitted to the party and allowed to stand again in the July 2024 election after party officials failed to broker a deal by which she would get the whip back in return for standing down.

Despite once having good relations with much of the Charedi community in her constituency in recent years this has broken down dramatically.

Britain’s first black MP is known to have health issues in recent years, which have also seen her out in the constituency less.

Her social media platform on X has also posted as series of controversial attacks on Israel in which the word “Jewish” was recently taken down.

It is unclear in the MP operates her social media platforms herself though, with younger staff often allegedly involved in posts.

Abbott is the longest-serving female MP in the Commons, having entered Parliament in 1987.

She said she was “grateful” to be a Labour MP in the BBC interview, but that she was sure the party leadership had been “trying to get me out”.