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The Guardian
17-07-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Diane Abbott says she stands by racism comments that led to suspension from Labour
Diane Abbott has said she has no regrets about comments on racism that led to her year-long suspension from the Labour party. The veteran Labour MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington was disciplined for writing a letter to the Observer in April 2023 arguing that people of colour experienced racism 'all their lives' and in a different way to Jewish people, Irish people and Travellers. Although she withdrew the comments at the time and apologised for any anguish caused, she was suspended from the Labour party after Keir Starmer said her letter was antisemitic. Abbott, who was readmitted to Labour before the general election, said that she did not look back on the incident with regret and that she stood by the argument. Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Reflections programme on Thursday, 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.' Her remarks came hours after Starmer suspended four Labour MPs from the party whip for repeated breaches of discipline. Abbott, who as the longest-serving female MP in the Commons has the honorary title of Mother of the House, said she felt 'a bit weary' of people labelling her antisemitic and said 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. 'I got tremendous support locally. We had a big rally on the steps of Hackney town hall. And in the end Keir Starmer and the people around him had to back off because of the support I had from the community.' 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. Reports that she would not be allowed to contest her seat as a Labour candidate led to a backlash from MPs and activists. The party's investigation into her had concluded months earlier but led to no change in her status. Abbott told the BBC that she was sure that the Labour leadership had been 'trying to get me out' and there were 'hints' that she would be offered a seat in the House of Lords if she stepped down as an MP. 'I was never going to that. And I'm a Labour MP today, and I'm grateful,' she said.
Telegraph
21-06-2025
- Health
- Telegraph
Diane Abbott is both an old Leftie and a true Tory
Whenever MPs legislate some monstrosity, we are often assured that the debate reflected 'the House of Commons at its best', as though an odious bill is rendered less odious by everyone having observed parliamentary niceties. Anyone seeking such solace after the approval of Kim Leadbeater's Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill will have a search on their hands. Friday's debate only confirmed what a wretched, incurious and insubstantial Parliament we have, with few exceptions. One of them is Diane Abbott, the Mother of the House. She used her allotted time to make one final plea to her colleagues not to take the NHS into the killing business. It was a speech both practical and humanist but marked above all by scepticism. Abbott lodged no religious objection. She is not, she pointed out, implacably opposed to assisted suicide; she simply could not vote for such a dangerously flawed piece of legislation. Abbott spoke a language Leadbeater displays no fluency in: doubt. She told MPs she 'would not put my life, or the life of anyone dear to me, in the hands of a panel of officials'. As for those who asserted that assisted suicide would always be voluntary, she accused the Bill's supporters of failing to consider people primed to defer to authority, who would 'think that, because their doctor raises it with them at all, they are being guided in that direction'. Pro-suicide MPs might not 'take seriously' such concerns but 'anyone who knows how institutions work should be watchful of it'. Here was a socialist warning against excessive deference to public sector bureaucrats and sainted NHS doctors. She showed an up-close understanding of the state's flaws that could only come from someone who has spent a career advocating state intervention. There is no conservative like an old Leftie. The MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington says she came into politics with hopes of being 'a voice for the voiceless'. Who, she asked her colleagues to imagine, 'could be more voiceless than somebody who is in their sick bed and believes that they are dying?' We all probably know someone who doesn't want to make a fuss or be a burden on their loved ones. 'Within the family,' Abbott said, 'the most powerful coercion is silence: it is the failure to answer when a question is put'. How many people will fall silent and go along with what they imagine to be in the best interests of the people around them? We are about to find out. What we can take a guess at is the demographic profile of those who will respond in this way. It will be older women, socialised to put their husband and children first. Women from minority religious and ethnic backgrounds, communities where it is traditional for men to do the talking and the decision-making and for women to be talked to and have final decisions presented to them. Such people exist beyond the ken of a House of Commons populated by privileged graduate professionals, those who, in Abbott's words, 'have for the entirety of their adult life been confident in dealing with authority and institutions'. What about those who don't share that confidence? When you legislate with only Esther Rantzen in mind, you're going to overlook a lot of people. Diane Abbott didn't just give a good speech. MPs give good speeches all the time. She took a stand at an hour of great moral failing and made the case for social conscience at a time of personal vanity. When a future Parliament comes to reckon with what this Parliament has done, it will look back with contempt upon a fit of callousness posing as compassion.
