Britain’s Labour leader Keir Starmer has condemned Diane Abbott’s comments about racism as “anti-Semitic” and said they will never be accepted in the party.
s Abbott had the Labour whip suspended after comments suggesting Jewish, Irish and Traveller people are not subject to racism “all their lives”.
Mr Starmer would not say if Ms Abbott should not stand again for her London constituency of Hackney North and Stoke Newington at the next general election, stating: “There’s an investigation in place, I’ve got to let that investigation be completed.”
Mr Starmer, speaking to reporters after a round-table event in south-east London about violence against women and girls, said: “In my view what she said was to be condemned, it was anti-Semitic.”
She said in a letter in The Observer that although white people “with points of difference” experience prejudice, they do not suffer the same racism as black people.
‘We must never accept the argument that there’s some sort of hierarchy of racism’
Ms Abbott has been an MP since 1987, was the first black woman elected to Parliament, and served as former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow home secretary.
Mr Starmer said: “Diane Abbott has suffered a lot of racial abuse over many, many years – that doesn’t take away from the fact that I condemn the words she used and we must never accept the argument that there’s some sort of hierarchy of racism.
“I will never accept that, the Labour Party will never accept that, and that’s why we acted as swiftly as we did yesterday.”
Earlier, Pat McFadden, shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, said disciplinary matters “will be a matter for the chief whip and the leader” and the party had “no choice” but to take action against Ms Abbott.
He told BBC Breakfast her comments “were completely wrong”.
He said: “They were offensive to people and based on a very wrong idea that there can be some sort of hierarchy when it comes to victims of racism.
“Anyone who has looked at the history will know that Jewish people have suffered the most terrible racism. The history of the 20th century is very obvious.
“Even recently, anti-Semitism is still a problem in our society.”
Mr McFadden said Mr Starmer is “determined to turn the page on some of the culture that had been in the Labour Party before he became leader”.