Britain’s first Black woman MP received a formal warning and took a mandated online course, but still not reinstated from 13-month-long suspension for accurate comments, barring her from standing as a Labour candidate
Keir Starmer’s excuselast for the continued – 13-month – suspension of Diane Abbott, Britain’s first Black woman MP, was that the party’s disciplinary process had to be allowed to run its course.
Abbott was suspended over comments in a newspaper article – comments for which many Black people felt she should never have apologised – that Jewish people, because most look like the white majority, do not face the same type of racism as Black people. The comments were used as an excuse for a pile-on by pro-Israel groups – and Starmer suspended the whip from Abbott over the supposed antisemitism, despite letting a number of right-wingers off the hook for genuinely antisemitic comments. If the party does not reinstate her, she will not be able to stand as a Labour candidate in the coming general election.
But now Starmer’s excuse has been blown out of the water, with the revelation that the disciplinary process in Abbott’s case finished five months ago, with Abbott handed a formal warning and ordered to complete an online ‘antisemitism course’, which she did:
Fellow Black left-winger Claudia Webbe echoed the thoughts of many when she described Starmer’s and the party’s actions as ‘racism to the core’ and an attempt to control Black people, especially left-wing women:
Activist ‘ToryFibs’ noted that the abuse of Ms Abbott is anything but the exception:
The party is riddled with anti-Black, anti-Muslim and anti-Gypsy racism and Keir Starmer has repeatedly protected and excused outright racism on the part of the Labour right – as well as covering up sexual harassment and misogyny by right-wingers. Abbott is far too good for the diseased husk he has made of the party.
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