Veteran MP Diane Abbott was this morning stripped of the Labour whip amid a backlash at her ‘shameful’ suggestion that Jewish people don’t suffer racism.
The former shadow home secretary has been suspended as a Labour MP by the party’s chief whip, Alan Campbell, while an investigation is carried out.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer had faced called calls to take action against Ms Abbott following her comments in a Sunday newspaper.
The 69-year-old, who has been an MP for more than 35 years, suggested that Jewish, Irish and Traveller people experience ‘prejudice’ but ‘are not all their lives subject to racism’.
Amid the fury at her comments, Cabinet minister Grant Shapps accused Ms Abbott, a close ally of former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, of ‘spouting hateful anti-Semitism’.
She later issued a statement to ‘wholly and unreservedly withdraw my remarks and disassociate myself from them’ as she blamed drafting ‘errors’.
But Labour pushed ahead with action against the ex-shadow minister.
