Sorry not sorry: why Diane Abbott got suspended again

It has been two years since Diane Abbott sent a letter to The Observer, in which she argued that although Jewish, Irish and Traveller people can experience "prejudice", they are "not all their lives subject to racism" – and likened it to the impact of having red hair.

'Clumsy' remarks

Keir Starmer responded fast, said Rachel Cunliffe in The New Statesman. Abbott had the Labour whip suspended, and though she apologised for "any anguish caused", she was only finally readmitted to the party just before the last election. She duly won her 10th consecutive victory in Hackney North and Stoke Newington, and it seemed as if everyone had resolved to move on – except Abbott herself.

In a memoir last year, she said that her remarks had been "clumsy", but that she stood by them; then last week, the BBC broadcast an interview in which she declared that she had no regrets about them, adding that it is "silly" to claim that "racism that is about skin colour is the same as other types of racism". Days later, she had the whip withdrawn again.

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Rightly so, said Brendan O'Neill in The Spectator. At a time when Britain is experiencing one of the "worst eruptions of anti-Jewish hatred in decades", no MP should be minimising antisemitism. Abbott will claim that she was not doing that, but merely noting that Jewish people can "blend in". This is "staggeringly naive". There "are many outward symbols of Jewishness that racist scumbags can easily see". Her own constituency is home to tens of thousands of strictly Orthodox Jews. She must be aware of how very visible they are; but non-Orthodox Jews too now risk being abused in the streets, if they wear so much as a Star of David necklace.

'Oppression Olympics'

Antisemitism is pervasive and troubling, said Melanie McDonagh in London's The Standard. But the fact is that Jewish and Irish people can disguise their religious and cultural identities, whereas if you are black your ethnicity "is evident instantly", no matter what you say, do or wear. Surely an MP should be able to make this point without being suspended.

It is right to acknowledge that people experience racism differently, said Gabriella Berkeley-Agyepong in The New Statesman. Abbott herself has endured appalling racism for decades. But her interventions in this debate were cackhanded. We cannot remove "individuality and culture" from the discussion, because "the way people talk, the religious attire they wear, and their socio- economic background" all affect their experience. Nor is it helpful to imply that some forms of racism are worse than others: "at the oppression Olympics", there are no winners, only losers.