Diane Abbott

[Flowerly]

To say that Diane Abbott is doing her best to help the Labour Party to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory?

Hideous antisemitism seemingly not gone away at all and add that to the horrendous misogyny in the Labour Party I wonder at this point why ANYONE would vote for them.

AIBU?

In the 80s it was common to see "No Travellers" signs in London pub windows.

And I also haven't a clue how my acknowledging the different history and context of racism towards people from certain ethnic backgrounds is somehow perpetuating discrimination in the UK. I'd have thought that pretending that context doesn't exist and that we all have the same experiences does quite the opposite, actually.

Or even Hackney and Stoke Newington, which is Abbott’s seat. Apsana Begum is the MP for Tower Hamlets.

I find her defence of 'That was the first draft which I sent by mistake' interesting.

I want to see the draft she meant to send. Because she seems to be suggesting there is a way to say this that people wouldn't find appalling.

@EllaDisenchanted There are lots of Jewish ex members of the Labour Party as I'm sure you know. People like Jacqueline Walker and many others Usually socialists and mostly supporters of justice for Palestinians.

They didn't resign because Starmer is a useless Tory lite stooge. They were expelled.

Travellers were, and are, identified as soon as they speak - if they weren't already recognised from living in caravans. Racism against them was/is localised and insidious but also supported by national law concerning parking, sites, education, health provision, etc. In areas where travellers commonly stop, everyone can identify the travellers.
The prejudice and racism against them might not have made the TV until the 1980s but it has always existed. It's not an anomaly that Hitler targeted them. He was enacting racism and prejudice that was replicated across the globe.
But Diane Abbot writing a frankly offensive letter equating others' experiences to having red hair - isn't a reason not to vote Labour. The reason not to vote Labour is because they have persecuted women, kowtowed to misogynists and are no longer the party of workers' rights. Fwiw the Tories aren't either.

I'd have thought it fairly obvious that she either doesn't care about the experiences of other races, that she lacks the intellect to find out, or that she just plain resents someone suggesting that black people aren't the only ones to suffer - and possibly all three

I think it's more complex than that. Diane Abbott is far from stupid. But she (along with Corbyn and all that Momentum lot) have spent decades living in an intellectual bubble which fixates on hierarchies of injustice and in whose ideology Jewishness is bound up with a hatred of Israel and a perception that Jews are complicit in the "western imperialism" which they rail against the whole time, purely because of Israel.

There is very much a view in these circles that some sorts of racism are more acceptable than others and Jews are often treated by these people as being in a class of their own because they are so obsessed with the Israel/Palestine situation and Jews are (wrongly) positioned as complicit in this. David Baddiel has talked a lot about the way British Jews are often required to state their position on Israel when talking to people on the left as if they required to "cleanse" themselves of any alliance with or support for Israel in order to be classed as an oppressed group of people.

Its childish and a triumph of ideology over common sense, but I don't think its explicit, intentional antisemitism (not that this excuses it), its unconscious antisemitism founded out of an obsession with "the west" (meaning, largely, the US, the UK and Israel) as the font of all world evil.

I reported your previous post for being anti-Semitic Abhanmor, so I guess that's why it was deleted. I neither know nor care what ethnicity you are.

This shouldn’t be a competition as to who has it worse

I couldn't agree more, but someone perhaps ought to tell Diane Abbott since she's spent years demonstrating that's exactly what she does think it's about

And then she accuses others of employing "divide and rule" ...

What always bothers me is how people get frothed at the mouth about Labour’s antisemitism but then go on and vote for the Tories and people like Boris Johnson who has been openly racist, sexist and classist, why are people shouting about Diane Abbott yet Johnson got away with the things he wrote (which I will not repeat). It’s all disgusting. But you cannot in all conscience not vote for Labour because of antisemitism and vote for the Tories instead who are just as vile in their views. Shouldn’t be voting for any of these bastards.

We need a huge political shake up or a new party, but the opposing choices are just too weak. Sick of the lot of them.

I am disappointed when people try to distort or selectively ignore parts of history to promote their own agenda, especially by trying to own a "problem" to make themselves the main or only victims.

"Only black people were enslaved"
"Irish people were the first slaves ever sold"
"Only jews were victims of Nazi Genocide"

Slavery was well established at a large scale in all ancient civilisations. It is well documented (including in the Bible) in Ancient Egyptian, Israelite, Greek and Roman times - and very few of these slaves were black. A significant number of slaves were actually from the same country/race as the slave masters. It was almost certainly practised in earlier times, but documentary evidence is sparse. Spartacus is perhaps one of the most well known ancient slaves and he was Thracian (now mainly in Bulgaria) and he assembled a 70,000 strong (white) slave army around 72BC to fight the Romans.

Nazi Genocide (ie. non-combat killing for political reasons) resulted in over 16 million deaths, and just over 6 million of these were jews.

Abbott has had the whip suspended. It is amazing it has not been withdrawn permanently, and she hasn't been expelled by Labour, especially coming just days after Starmer's comments about Sunak/Raab and his inferred promise to deal immediately and decisively deal with similar situations.

Letting Labour get away with bullshit because 'they're not the Tories' is how we've ended up with a Labour Party in thrall to queer theory, oblivious to workers' rights, and incapable of applying class analysis to the position of women in society.

She (along with Corbyn and all that Momentum lot) have spent decades living in an intellectual bubble which fixates on hierarchies of injustice and in whose ideology Jewishness is bound up with a hatred of Israel and a perception that Jews are complicit in the "western imperialism" which they rail against the whole time, purely because of Israel

You're right of course, Thepeopleversuswork, and I really should have included the intellectual bubble in my list - though I'm not sure "intellectual" is quite the right word for it, and preferred your use of "ideological"

Sadly we see this blinkered thought process with all manner of extremists, and it helps precisely nobody

Yes I believe this is the case and certainly reflected left-wing student politics when I was younger. I just never realised it extended to Romanis and similar groups, I presume because this group see them as "white" and therefore don't count. Woefully ignorant.

Why would anyone be surprised or upset about the Tories making the most they can about Abbott's letter? I'm sure she thought it through, and took that into account before publishing it in the Observer?

Labour have always been antisemitic and always will be . They are the nasty party under the guise of caring about people .

David Baddiel on LBC now.....

Yet the Tories who have been openly racist, sexist, classist etc, seem to get away with it. They’re the nasty party who are openly the nasty party, yet people still vote for them. I can’t get my head around why we allow any of these wankers to remain in their jobs. I’d be fired if I expressed such views and rightly so. Yet you can be an openly racist MP and be promoted to PM.

The Tories would never let a woman be prime minister or an ethnic minority.....

Actions speak louder than words.

The difference is David Baddiel admits what he did is racist and has apologised to the individual and to the wider public. DA doesn’t think she is anti-Semitic / racist. Is Baddiel never allowed to call out racism because he is was once himself.

@Florenz Yup, she knew fine well what she was doing. She has spent the last 2 years as a Labour MP wilfully agitating against the Labour leader. So her comments cannot be isolated from the fact she partially blames (((a certain group))) for Corbyn and she can't let that go.

Utter bollocks go and tell it to these people - one of Labour's oldest groups who helped to found the Labour Party.

https://www.jewishlabour.uk/

Affiliated to the Labour Party in the UK since 1920, we are members
of the progressive coalition of Avodah/Meretz/Arzenu/Ameinu
within the WZO, and support Havoda (The Labor Party) and Meretz in Israel.

I feel there has been a real shift in how Jews are talked about and viewed in the past 20 years.

20/ 30 years ago there was still such a deep all encompassing collective horror of the holocaust, it was at the forefront of what everyone thought about when they thought about the Jews.

You immedaitely thought about the horror, in living memory of people in Europe being rounded up and exterminated in their millions because of hatred of their race. And the confusion we all felt of the horror that fellow 'civilsed' europeans could do this and went along with it.

Yet now we can have an MP 'mistakenly' draft a letter suggesting the Jews don't expereince racism. And people on this thread suggesting it's not as bad for Jews as black people. I cannot fathom what has happened to reach this point so quickly.

I honestly believed when younger that the collective horror at what happened to Jews meant it would never happen again and that they's always now be protected.

But when there are even still holocaust survivors living, we seem to moved on and to be minimising and forgetting, a fellow european nation tred to exterminate a race only 80 years ago.

Jews must be bewiledered and sick.

She did apologise and withdraw her comments same as Baddiel. Funny how people want Abbott to be sacked and she cannot be redeemed but someone like Baddiel can say things against multiple groups e.g. travellers and black people and still be forgiven. Surely everyone should have a chance for redemption? If one does and the other does not that is hypocrisy.

Nobody’s elected Baddiel and he’s not paid a salary from taxpayers’ money.