Diane Abbott

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Chippy_Tea

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You couldn't make it up.


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By Jemma Crew
BBC News


Diane Abbott has been suspended as a Labour MP pending an investigation into a letter she wrote about racism for the Observer, the party has said.
The politician said "many types of white people with points of difference" can experience prejudice, in a letter published on Sunday.
But they are not subject to racism "all their lives", she said.
She later tweeted to say she was withdrawing her remarks and apologised "for any anguish caused".
Labour said the comments were "deeply offensive and wrong".
The BBC has approached Ms Abbott for comment.
In the letter, she wrote that Irish, Jewish and Traveller people "undoubtedly experience prejudice", which she said is "similar to racism".
She continued: "It is true that many types of white people with points of difference, such as redheads, can experience this prejudice.
"But they are not all their lives subject to racism.
"In pre-civil rights America, Irish people, Jewish people and Travellers were not required to sit at the back of the bus.
"In apartheid South Africa, these groups were allowed to vote.
"And at the height of slavery, there were no white-seeming people manacled on the slave ships."
She had been responding to an article in the Guardian questioning the view that racism "only affects people of colour".
Ms Abbott's letter prompted a backlash, including from the Board of Deputies of British Jews, which described it as "disgraceful" and her apology "entirely unconvincing".
The group had urged Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer to remove the whip.
In her apology, the MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington said "errors" arose in an initial draft that was sent.
She continued: "But there is no excuse, and I wish to apologise for any anguish caused.
"Racism takes many forms, and it is completely undeniable that Jewish people have suffered its monstrous effects, as have Irish people, Travellers and many others."
The Jewish Labour Movement - an organisation of Labour-supporting Jewish members - said it "regretfully" supported the party's decision.
It tweeted: "Diane Abbott is one of the most respected people in the Labour Party as an activist who overcame racism and prejudice to become Britain's first black woman MP.
"We should be unified in our struggle against racism, not divided against one another.
"A hierarchy of racism only divides communities and assists the racists."
Suspending the whip means Ms Abbott will not be allowed to represent Labour in the House of Commons, where she will now sit as an independent MP.
A Labour Party spokesman said: "The Labour Party completely condemns these comments, which are deeply offensive and wrong.
"The chief whip has suspended the Labour whip from Diane Abbott pending an investigation."
 
I'm becoming increasingly disillusioned with Starmer. I'm hoping he trips and breaks his neck before the next election so that someone who actually resembles something like Labour can take over. Angela would be a hoot. Rachel would be good even in spite of her deathly boring voice. At least what she says makes sense.
Anyone to get the Tory's out is my aim, but it doesn't have to be Labour when Labour isn't Labour any more.
 
ngela would be a hoot. Rachel would be good even in spite of her deathly boring voice. At least what she says makes sense.
I know i sound like a cracked record because i say this every time the subject comes up but its Andy Burnham for me.
 
Tough one for labour. Expell her and face claims of racism or give her a slap on the wrist and look like anti-semites.
Why? She's given her opinion, an opinion based on observation and experience that white people with "points of difference" suffer prejudice, but not the continuous and unrelenting prejudice that black people suffer and she gives some evidence and arguments in support of her opinion. Whether her evidence or arguments are correct, I don't know. Some anonymous (within the context of the article cited) representative of one of these groups claims (again within the context of the article cited) not that her arguments are wrong or that she is mistaken or that his or her experience doesn't tally with Abbott's claimed experience of racism, but instead jumps straight into emotive language and says her letter is "disgraceful". What is disgraceful? The fact she's written it? Her opinion? The fact that she compares other groups' experiences to her own? What? They then badger Starmer to remove the whip. Which he does. Why?
 
On the face of it, yes. But she has a completely different perspective to you and I and probably knows better than you and I.

I think I get the point she was trying to make, but linguistics and communication are not her strong suit. Not ideal for a politician.
 
Why? She's given her opinion, an opinion based on observation and experience that white people with "points of difference" suffer prejudice, but not the continuous and unrelenting prejudice that black people suffer and she gives some evidence and arguments in support of her opinion.
Unfortunately she has shot herself in the foot by using the excuse that this was a draught version and was not supposed to have been sent to the paper, is she saying she didn't mean what she said or that she regrets saying it.
 
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She makes a valid point but - as usual for her - communicated it like a bull in a china shop.
Jews , redheads, travellers and the Irish might not face daily overt racism like a black person does, but on the historical scale it's been demonstrably catastrophic to be a romani or Irish gipsy/traveller across Europe and Central Asia, with many genocides. Jews have been persecuted for just as long with a rather well known recent genocide, and the english were quite good at killing Irish people for many centuries after Cromwell.
So I get her point, but what a ridiculous thing to even compare in a press article knowing full well it can be a) misinterpreted b) offensive to the pearl necklace touching snowflakes c) used politically like a sawn off shotgun against her.

Stupid woman, gets what she deserves for this
 
Ms Abbott's letter prompted a backlash, including from the Board of Deputies of British Jews, which described it as "disgraceful" and her apology "entirely unconvincing".
The group had urged Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer to remove the whip.


I think we're missing the point here. Remember when May had a snap election and it blew up in her face? She paid the DUP a fortune to bolster her policies and they also got their own way on a number of things. OK, when that sort of thing happens among elected members of parliament it's a coalition, sort of. But who the F is this Board of Deputies? Who elected them to Parliament? What right have they or anyone else to urge a party leader to remove the whip?
This doesn't bode well for Starmer's resilience to pressure groups if he ever comes to power, which I'm increasingly unlikely to support.
Has Abbott ever been known for her remarkable wit and eloquence, by the way?
 
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Yet if you write a letter to the newspaper saying that women who wear burkas look like pillar boxes or bank robbers, instead of getting accused of racism you get made party leader!!!
 
Why? She's given her opinion, an opinion based on observation and experience that white people with "points of difference" suffer prejudice, but not the continuous and unrelenting prejudice that black people suffer and she gives some evidence and arguments in support of her opinion. Whether her evidence or arguments are correct, I don't know. Some anonymous (within the context of the article cited) representative of one of these groups claims (again within the context of the article cited) not that her arguments are wrong or that she is mistaken or that his or her experience doesn't tally with Abbott's claimed experience of racism, but instead jumps straight into emotive language and says her letter is "disgraceful". What is disgraceful? The fact she's written it? Her opinion? The fact that she compares other groups' experiences to her own? What? They then badger Starmer to remove the whip. Which he does. Why?
That's a lot in there lol. Basically, it was a stupid thing to write and it doesn't offend me in the slightest (not that it should make any difference) but she panders to the perpetually outraged mob and I love watching them shoot themselves in the foot. If she goes you'll have the likes of David Lammy & Shelagh Fogarty crying racism and if she stays then labour are seen as still carrying the anti-Semite torch.
Labour will struggle to win what should be the easiest GE win in a lifetime and it will be completely their own fault.
 
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