Diane Abbot labour whip removed

[justpreeing]

Didn’t see a thread here so I thought I’d start one.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/apr/23/diane-abbott-suspended-by-labour-after-saying-jewish-people-not-subject-to-racism

Personally, I think it’s the correct call. Incredible unforced error.

Also happy to see her go. No fan of her and her politics.

Stupid woman.

Guess who never campaigned door to door and had proper conversations with people?

Fancy thinking Diane Abbott never campaigned door to door or had conversations with people.

I, on the other hand feel really sad about it because they have been gunning for her for a long time and they finally got her.

She was arguing that black people suffer racism based on the colour of their skin in a way that (white) Irish, Jewish and Traveller people generally don't but of course she phrased it as if these people don’t suffer discrimination at all and of course ignored the POC in those communities. She’s too long in the tooth to have forgotten how as a black female left wing politician she just cannot have the freedom to explore things best left to commentators and activists.

She’s been suspended and this will be the end of her career.

I agree @skullbabe. There is a thread on this in AIBU and of course the white women of Mumsnet are wetting themselves with excitement at the opportunity to stick the knife into a woman of colour. Funny how they care most about racism when they think it happens to white people. They aren't anywhere near as worried about the recent news that black girls are strip searched more often than anyone else. I wonder why that might be?

Exactly @PinotGroggio . I was thinking the same thing about the findings into the strip searches. Hardly any posters at all, yet the Diane Abbott one running for pages, and pages. I did not even bother with it, I am fed up with the majority faux outrage from posters on MN, who have no experience whatsoever of racism, yet seem to feel the need to stick the boot into a woman who happens to know what she is talking about. I agree with your post as well@skullbabe .

This is terribly sad. Diane Abbot has been a champion for BAME rights forever.
I feel this is just an excuse to remove her, due to her longevity of political service in Labour. Keir Starmer seems convinced he needs to remove all the old guard.

As for John Mann, I have no words.

Yes, she may have used the wrong words in her letter. But, I agree with her, there is a lot of historical prejudice in this world, which impacts on people of Jewish, Irish and Roma backgrounds. They have suffered and been persecuted over the centuries by those in power and by society in general at different times.

However, the racism that Black and people of colour face is very different.

It is based on colour, you cannot hide it, many of us have names that highlight our background: then we are discriminated against, persecuted, have to endure institutional/societal racism as a result. Our actual history and ancient civilisations are overlooked in school curricula. The colonisation of our ancestor's lands is seen as nothing, even history seems to ignore the consequences of this time in those lands, let alone those whose ancestors were enslaved for centuries. Before becoming second/third citizens in whatever country they happen to be born.

Our ancestors have had to fight for recognition even to be regarded as human or people capable of running their own lives.

Only now, are individual governments and families are acknowledging that impact.

That should read 'some slave-owning families and institutions are...'

I am also sorry to see that this is not in the main politics section. She was the first black female MP.
If you ignore the Daily Mail froth about her personal life, her constituents have voted her in again and again cos' she does what is said on the tin - represent and support!

I do not agree with Diane Abbott re prejudice. The Holocaust happened to a race of people not a faith. It did not matter if you were a practicing Jew or a Jew by race so many killed. That is racism on a huge scale. I am not Jewish or black but an observer of history

Speaking as a "white" woman of Irish descent, I do not associate myself with other people who are pleased about this, and many of us aren't. I care about racism whenever it happens, and wherever it happens. This comment is as divisive and ill thought out as the way in which Diane Abbott expressed herself - all "white" women do not think alike or act alike, any more than all black women do.

I fully understand what Ms. Abbott was trying to express, and I agree with her in many respects - the way in which different ethnicities experience racism is not "a one-size fits all". Even within groups, people can and do experience it differently. And we all speak more knowledgably about our own experience because none of us can fully appreciate the experience others have, no matter how hard we try.

I think it is a tragedy that anyone who openly and vociferously fights for an end to racism, violence against (all) women and girls, and the rights of the poor and disadvantaged is being hung out to dry by a party that, agree with them or not, they have given decades of their life to, over a single ill thought out incident. But this has less to do with race or racism, and everything to do with Keir Starmer being determined to drive every last socialist from the Labour Party. He'd have had her suspended if her cake recipe had turned out wrong, given the chance.

And it suits his agenda, and that of other political parties, for us to spend more time on what separates us than what binds us. It is a sad day for anyone who cares about democracy, the rights of others, and socialism.

@squirrelslikenuts

I kind of agree and kind of don't. (To be honest, I think Diane abbot might not know huge amounts about the Roma, who often have browner skin than the populations in which they live and are still educated in many parts of Eastern Europe in a racially segregated way and given far lower levels of education. Roma women were, for example, subject to forcible state sterilisation until as recently as the 1990s in some European states. Many were exterminated by Stalin and Hitler. Horrifying.)

It is absolutely the case that skin colour is a basis for racism and is particularly difficult. However, trying to compare the wrongs done to specific groups is I think a bit misguided (you could never compare slavery and the holocaust in a newspaper article without being at risk of being crass and insensitive, whichever side you picked as "worse") and where Diane Abbot fell down. Not to mention that it looks rather like victim blaming to tell a Jewish man (who will often have a distinctively Jewish name) that if he didn't wear his skull cap he wouldn't be abused.

I do feel for her though. I think she has some health problems to deal with. I don't think she meant to cause offence and I think she has had to deal with an awful lot of racism.

I'm sorry you feel like that @Quveas but there is a long history of white women on Mumsnet being utterly vicious towards black women in the public eye, whether it be Diane or Meghan Markle or Serena Williams etc.

Yet over other issues they are tellingly silent. Just look at the FWR board. A long thread about Diane (complete with plenty of "I saw a black person do xyz and that was so racist") but the only thread on the strip search figures has just 31 comments with someone saying there's no evidence that racism is a factor.

The last in a series of blunders from her. She really needs to step down, I think she is unwell.

I've seen a lot of appalling things said and done by politicians in the uk, never have I seen the speed at which Dianne Abbot's punishment was handed out in our politics.

I don't think it matters much if you agree with her politics, she is an important and significant woman and should be historically remembered as such.

She said a bloody stupid thing, and I really don't think she meant it in the way its been taken, but that isn't my judgment to make.

To have this be the defining moment of an incredibly prominent politician's career would be desperately sad and further demonstrates the issues we have in the UK with white privilege. I suspect a white man would have been treated quite differently by the Labour Party.

I hadn’t seen the strip search thread but if I had I would have certainly commented on
it.

I’m Jewish, DH is black and we used to live in DA’s constituency. It’s been the source of discussion all weekend in our family but
our general view is that it’s not a competition about who has it the worst and making it such doesn‘t help anyone. The example
minorities she mentioned have been persecuted and even murdered for their ethnicity over history- which isn’t to say that black people haven’t (obviously they’ve had horrific persecution over history) but it’s minimising to those people to compare it to how redheads are treated.

I admire Dianne for all she’s done in our local community but I was really disappointed by this article.

@lunar1 Agree 100%. Never mind the Labour Party and its new ethics line. What about the Tories they get away with murder on this front? No one suspends them.

The sad thing is Diane Abbot has always been on a hit list of people to target (both Labour & Tory) and gets constantly politically & personally attacked.

Not to say she is perfect, she like every one makes mistakes, and makes unguarded comments.

But, she has worked very hard over the years for equal treatment of many, and not just her constituents. She represents the old guard to Keir Starmer and friends, but they should remember, even the Tories are beating them on the ethnic minority and female representation front.

She has apologised, and sincerely as opposed to other politicians, who come up with the 'Sorry, if you were offended apology'.

Labour needs to be more supportive of the old guard, there are many people who think and can identify with her. As usual, they are opening a can of worms, which the Tories will exploit.

There are no winners in a discussion as to who suffered the most pain in the past.

Some of us white women of MN actually feel defensive of DA.

I'm glad to hear that @FlowersEverywherePlease but the general loathing for Diane on MN is certainly not something we've imagined. I lost track of the AIBU thread but the FWR one is still going. Still, I guess it gives them something else to focus on than trans issues.

It’s all so terribly sad that it has come to this for her - after being such a trailblazer and standing so strong. They all continue to stick the knife in - I’ve just read the feminism thread.

Dr Shola Mos-Shogbamimu has posted a tweet. I think that she is spot on.

She’s a fucking car crash, thank God. I hold her partially responsible for the shitshow we’re enduring now. She literally gifted them ammunition and made it so easy for the hard of thinking to rail against Labour.

I can see one of them has drifted onto here.

Indeed 😕

They always do don't they? 🙄

Did anyone read the article she was responding to? I'll see if I can dig it out? It was in itself problematic. There was an interesting article in The Guardian about what she wrote too.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/apr/24/diane-abbott-letter

Here we go.