Diane Abbott has had the Labour whip restored after a TV revelation – and not, in This Writer’s opinion, because an investigation into her behaviour has just ended.

She’s back in the Parliamentary Labour Party – we’re told – after a revelation on BBC Newsnight that the party’s investigation into the circumstances that caused her suspension ended in December last year.

The official line, it seems, is that the investigation has just finished.

But do you believe Keir Starmer’s lying Labour Party or the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire? Read:

NEW: I can reveal Labour’s investigation into suspended MP Diane Abbott’s racism comments finished 5 months ago

A source says she was given a ‘formal warning’ in Dec ‘23

Ms Abbott was required to do an online ‘anti semitism course’ – which she did in Feb

Yet source says she…

— Victoria Derbyshire (@vicderbyshire) May 28, 2024

This Writer reckons Labour was publicly shamed into giving Ms Abbott the party whip back – and notice that reports don’t say whether she will be allowed to stand for re-election in her Hackney North constituency, or if standing down is a condition of her re-admittance.

(Personally, I don’t understand why she would agree to this; if she has to stand down from representing her constituents in order to get back into a party that has spent the last few years stabbing her in the back, then she’d be better off walking away and standing as an Independent, like her long-term left-wing colleague, Jeremy Corbyn.)

Sky News is saying

Ms Abbott was suspended from the party last year after writing a letter in The Guardian suggesting Jewish people do not face racism, and that instead they suffer prejudice similar to “redheads”

but this is not true, strictly speaking.

She actually wrote that “Irish, Jewish and Traveller people… undoubtedly experience prejudice… but they are not all their lives subject to racism”.

Her point was that people of colour suffer racism far more often in their daily lives than those who might be defined as “white/European”, because the difference is visually obvious.

I wrote at the time of her suspension:

Nobody who knows her history could deny that she has a very strong point; if I recall correctly, Ms Abbott receives more racist hate mail than all other MPs put together.

She tried to make a distinction by saying people of colour suffer racism while Irish people, Jews and Travellers (the GRT community), suffer prejudice instead – and that’s where she went wrong.

It’s all racism. Jewish people (for example) were originally Semitic (hence the word for hate against them: anti-Semitism), and the fact that their culture, like Christianity, has been successful in absorbing people from other races does not stop hatred being directed at them because they are different.

The problem here is simply finding the right word for the distinction she intended, which is that the other groups can avoid abuse on occasions because their skin colour means they can blend in with what, for want of a better word, I’ll describe as the majority.

But it was enough for the usual suspects to spring to the attack – presumably secure in the knowledge that nobody is about to ask them to compare the amount of abuse those of them who present as white/European receive against Ms Abbott’s.

Ms Abbott has apologised for it, claiming that the letter published in The Observer was a draft that should not have gone out. That’s still her mistake, though – and one she should not have made.

So it was a valid point made in a very clumsy way. She apologised, accepted the verdict of Labour’s investigation, and carried out the online anti-Semitism course she was required to do – and was forced to wait another five months while Keir Starmer kept her off his party’s benches anyway.

And what does Starmer have to say about this? A lot of rubbish:

Sir Keir was asked by reporters about her case when he was on the campaign trail in Hertfordshire this afternoon but gave little away, saying: “The process overall is obviously a little longer than the fact-finding exercise.

“But in the end, this is a matter that will have to be resolved by the National Executive Committee and they’ll do that in due course.”

However, Conservative Party chairman Richard Holden said it was “inconceivable” Sir Keir wasn’t told the process had finished.

“No ifs, no buts,” said Mr Holden. “This isn’t another flip-flop or yet another policy U-turn. Sir Keir Starmer has blatantly lied to the British people and has serious questions to answer.”

This Writer finds that this is one of the rare occasions when I agree with a Conservative.

It really does seem inconceivable that Starmer was unaware that the investigation had concluded and Ms Abbott had carried out the actions required before she could be re-admitted to the Parliamentary Labour Party.

That should have happened months ago, and the only reason it hasn’t – as far as I can see – is that Starmer has blocked it.

I think he needs to show us documentary evidence of what Labour Party authorities have done about this matter and when, along with the reasons given for each step – especially for the delay in reinstating Ms Abbott.

Source: Diane Abbott has Labour whip restored after investigation | Politics News | Sky News

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