MP Diane Abbott has been suspended by the Labour Party pending an investigation into comments she made about racism, the BBC understands.<\/p>\n
The move also means that Abbott will sit as an independent MP, known as losing the whip.<\/p>\n
Labour said it would not be commenting “while this investigation is ongoing”. <\/p>\n
It comes after Abbott said in a BBC interview: “I just think that it’s silly to try and claim that racism which is about skin colour is the same as other types of racism.”<\/p>\n
She was speaking about a 2023 controversy, when she was suspended as a Labour MP for a year after comments she made about racism in a letter to a newspaper.<\/p>\n
In that letter to the Observer newspaper, she wrote that Irish, Jewish and Traveller people “undoubtedly experience prejudice” that is “similar to racism”.<\/p>\n
She wrote: “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.”<\/p>\n
Abbott was quick to withdraw the remarks, which were heavily criticised by Jewish and Traveller groups, and apologised “for any anguish caused”.<\/p>\n
But she was suspended from the party and only re-admitted just before last year’s general election.<\/p>\n
Asked by the BBC’s James Naughtie if she looked back on the whole incident with regret, she said: “No, not at all.”<\/p>\n
She said: “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.<\/p>\n
“You don’t know unless you stop to speak to them or you’re in a meeting with them.<\/p>\n
“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.”<\/p>\n
She added: “I just think that it’s silly to try and claim that racism which is about skin colour is the same as other types of racism.”<\/p>\n
Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner was asked if she was disappointed by the comments.<\/p>\n
She told the Guardian newspaper that she was, adding: “There’s no place for antisemitism in the Labour party, and obviously the Labour party has processes for that.<\/p>\n
“Diane had reflected on how she’d put that article together, and said that ‘was not supposed to be the version’, and now to double down and say ‘Well, actually I didn’t mean that. I actually meant what I originally said’, I think is a real challenge.”<\/p>\n
In her BBC interview, Abbott was asked if she would condemn antisemitic behaviour in the same way she would racist behaviour against someone because of the colour of their skin.<\/p>\n
She replied: “Well of course, and I do get a bit weary of people trying to pin the antisemitic label on me because I’ve spent a lifetime fighting racism of all kinds and in particular fighting antisemitism, partly because of the nature of my constituency.”<\/p>\n
The Hackney North and Stoke Newington MP is the longest-serving female MP in the Commons, having entered Parliament in 1987.<\/p>\n
She said she was “grateful” to be a Labour MP in the BBC interview, but that she was sure the party leadership had been “trying to get me out”.<\/p>\n