LONDON (Reuters) -British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour Party suspended Diane Abbott, the country’s longest-serving female lawmaker, on Thursday after she stood by her earlier remarks on racism which had led to a previous suspension.
A leading figure in British left-wing politics and the first Black woman to be elected to parliament, Abbott was suspended by Labour in 2023 for saying the prejudice experienced by Jewish people was similar to, but not the same as, racism.
She later apologised for the remarks and withdrew them. Abbott, 71, was admitted back into Labour only weeks before the national election in July 2024 following a backlash within the party.
Asked on Thursday in an interview if she looked back on the whole incident with regret, she told BBC Radio: “No, not at all.”
“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.
“But if you see a black person walking down the street, you see straight away that they’re black. They are different types of racism,” Abbott said.
A Labour spokesperson said that Abbott had been administratively suspended pending an investigation.
Starmer has vowed to rid Labour of antisemitism after the party faced accusations of discrimination and harassment against Jewish people under former leader Jeremy Corbyn.
He has also suspended other Labour lawmakers over the course of his year-old premiership, including four just on Wednesday for organising a rebellion against the government’s welfare reforms.
(Reporting by Sachin Ravikumar and Andrew MacAskill; Editing by Leslie Adler)
