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Diane Abbott has been suspended from the Labour party pending an investigation into an interview which she said she did not regret her past comments on racism.
The veteran Labour MP has been disciplined for the second time over her remarks that people of colour experienced racism “all their lives”, differently to the “prejudice” experienced by Jewish people, Irish people and Travellers.
Abbott, who has the honorary title mother of the house as the longest-serving female MP in the Commons, first made the comments in a letter to the Observer in 2023 and was suspended from the party after Keir Starmer said they were antisemitic.
She swiftly apologised and withdrew the remarks at the time, and was eventually readmitted, after a protracted investigation, in time to stand in the general election.
In an interview with the BBC on Thursday, Abbott defended her original remarks. “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,” she said.
“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.”
Angela Rayner said she was disappointed that Abbott had defended the comments that led to her year-long suspension, saying there was “no place for antisemitism” within the party.
The deputy prime minister, who last year paved the way for Abbott to be allowed to stand for the party again at the election, told the Guardian the comments represented a “real challenge” for Labour. Her words were an early indication that the MP’s future within the party was again under question. Rayner said it was “not good” that Abbott had sought to back away from her earlier apology.
A Labour party spokesperson said: “Diane Abbott has been administratively suspended from the Labour party, pending an investigation. We cannot comment further while this investigation is ongoing.”
Abbott’s remarks were broadcast hours after Starmer suspended four Labour MPs from the party whip for repeated breaches of discipline.
She 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”. Abbott’s north London constituency of Hackney North and Stoke Newington is home to a large Jewish population.
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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 as a Labour candidate after party officials failed to broker a deal by which she would get the whip back in return for standing down. The row dominated the early days of the general election campaign.
Abbott, one of the most recognisable Labour MPs in the country, was the first black woman elected to parliament, and ministers will be braced for a furious response from some on the left over her second suspension.
