Diane Abbott, the MP for Hackney North and Still Clinging On, has declared — for roughly the thousandth time — that the Labour Party “wants her out,” as if this were a fresh revelation and not the world’s worst-kept secret since Boris Johnson’s hair dye.
Appearing on Newsnight, a programme watched almost exclusively by other suspended MPs and James Naughtie’s extended family, Abbott brushed aside any suggestion that she regrets claiming Jewish, Irish, and Traveller people don’t suffer “real” racism — the kind, one assumes, that comes with a Pantone swatch.
“No, not at all,” she told the BBC, which must have been thrilled to give airtime to a woman whose relationship with public statements is best described as accident-prone with benefits.
In her now-infamous 2023 letter — typed, we assume, without adult supervision — Abbott explained that, while Irish and Jewish people do experience prejudice, it’s not quite the deluxe, extra-strength racism reserved for Black people. Redheads, for reasons no one asked about, were also thrown into the mix like unfortunate garnishes.
The letter was, of course, swiftly retracted with the usual chorus of regrets, clarifications, and frantic press officers issuing statements that included words like “anguish,” “miscommunication,” and “Greggs was closed.”
Abbott was duly suspended, unsuspended, and re-suspended in a display of bureaucratic hokey-cokey only the modern Labour Party could choreograph. Yet she remains defiant. “There must be a difference,” she told the BBC, between visible racism (the skin-based kind) and the stealthier varieties that require “stopping to speak” to someone — a diagnostic technique presumably taught on Day One of the Diane Abbott School of Sociology.
She even offered a masterclass in ethnographic observation: “If you see a black person walking down the street, you see straight away that they’re black.” A shocking insight that will no doubt revolutionise anthropology.
Labour HQ, meanwhile, has responded with its signature move — the meaningful silence. “We don’t comment on ongoing investigations,” said a party spokesperson, while simultaneously leaking spicy tidbits to every political journalist in SW1.
Angela Rayner, Deputy Prime Minister and Full-Time Damage Control Officer, offered a pointed reminder that there’s “no place for antisemitism in the Labour Party,” especially if it results in awkward headlines during an election cycle.
John McDonnell, performing his contractual obligation to defend Diane Abbott under the ancient rites of the Corbynite Fellowship, asked that everyone “actually listen” to her interview. A touching sentiment — though one suspects many viewers had already changed channel to something less inflammatory, like a volcano documentary.
Abbott insists she’s spent her life fighting racism “of all kinds” — though, apparently, some kinds need footnotes and clarifications. She remains the longest-serving female MP, a fact both impressive and a bit awkward for a party currently treating her like an unclaimed suitcase at Euston.
She ended her interview with a declaration of loyalty to the Labour Party — though one suspects the feeling is not mutual. “I’m grateful to be a Labour MP,” she said, as the party continued desperately hunting for the nearest trapdoor.
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