Left-wing UK lawmaker Diane Abbott suspended after claiming Jews can’t expertise racism

A left-wing UK lawmaker has been suspended after arguing in a public letter that Jewish individuals can’t be the victims of “racism.”

Diane Abbott, was suspended as a Labour Social gathering whip on Sunday after widespread backlash.

She launched a press release on Twitter apologizing for her remarks on Sunday and expressing her want to “disassociate myself from them.”

The UK’s progressive Labour Party has lengthy confronted accusations of antisemitism, and its leaders have been fast to sentence Abbott’s phrases and take away her from get together management this weekend.

Abbott despatched a letter to The Guardian responding to an article that had questioned whether or not solely individuals of coloration can expertise racism.

Her response argued that whereas Jewish and sure White individuals could expertise “prejudice,” they don’t expertise “racism.”

“They undoubtedly expertise prejudice,” she wrote of Jews and White individuals. “That is just like racism and the 2 phrases are sometimes used as if they’re interchangeable.”

“It’s true that many varieties of white individuals with factors of distinction, reminiscent of redheads, can expertise this prejudice. However they don’t seem to be all their lives topic to racism. In pre-civil rights America, Irish individuals, Jewish individuals and Travellers weren’t required to sit down in the back of the bus. In apartheid South Africa, these teams have been allowed to vote. And on the top of slavery, there have been no white-seeming individuals manacled on the slave ships,” her letter completed.

Abbott launched a press release Sunday following swift backlash, saying she wish to apologize for “the remarks and any misery induced on account of them.”

“I want to wholly and unreservedly withdraw my remarks and disassociate myself with them,” Abbott wrote, happening in charge the problem on an early draft of the letter being revealed. “However there isn’t any excuse, and I want to apologize for any anguish I induced.”

“Racism takes many types, and it’s utterly simple that Jewish individuals have suffered its monstrous results, as have Irish individuals, Vacationers and plenty of others,” she wrote.

Abbott’s suspension will final till an investigation into the matter has been concluded, a Labour Social gathering spokesman instructed the BBC.