UK’s Labour suspends Diane Abbott for saying Jews experience prejudice, not racism

Diane Abbott, a prominent legislator in Britain’s main opposition Labour Party, was suspended for writing a letter comparing Jewish prejudice to racism.

Labour, which polls suggest will form Britain’s next government after an election next year, was accused of anti-Semitism under former leader Jeremy Corbyn.

In 2020, the equalities watchdog said Labour failed to address recurrent antisemitic concerns.

Abbott, 69, responded to a writer’s charges of Irish, Jewish, and Traveller bigotry. She claimed their experiences were like racism but different.

They’re prejudiced. “Racism and this are often used interchangeably,” she wrote.

“It is true that many types of white people with points of difference, such as redheads, can experience this prejudice,” she said in the letter. “But they are not all their lives subject to racism.”

Abbott, a lawmaker since 1987, was Britain’s first Black woman elected to parliament and Corbyn’s home affairs spokesperson.

“In pre-civil rights America, Irish people, Jewish people and Travellers were not required to sit at the back of the bus,” Abbott wrote to the Observer. They voted in apartheid South Africa. No white-looking persons were chained on slave ships during slavery.”

She apologized “unreservedly” and withdrew.

“The errors arose in an initial draft being sent,” she tweeted. “But there is no excuse, and I wish to apologise for any anguish caused.”

Labour party official stated she was suspended awaiting investigation.

British MPs chastised her letter. Jewish energy secretary Grant Shapps tweeted, “once again, Jewish people have to wake up and see a Labour MP casually spouting hateful anti-Semitism.”

After saying antisemitism in the party while his leadership had been “dramatically overstated” for political reasons, Corbyn was suspended and barred from running in the next general election.

Britain’s equalities watchdog decided earlier this year that the Labour Party has made enough antisemitism improvements in the last two years.