Labour have withdrawn the whip from Dianne Abbot after she
claimed in a letter that Jewish people had not experienced racism.
Abbot was responding to an article in the Observer with the
title, "Racism in Britain is not a
black and white issue. It's far more complicated", but she later
retracted her comments and apologised. Abbot said that the Irish, the Jews, and
the travelling community, had undoubtedly suffered prejudice which was similar
to racism and the two words were often used as though they were
interchangeable. She wrote that the Irish, the Jews, and the Travellers, had
not been required in pre-civil rights America to sit at the back of buses,
could vote in apartheid South Africa, and had not been put in manacles and
placed on slave ships. She said that white people can experience prejudice but
are not a subject to racism all their lives.
Under Kier Starmer's leadership, there doesn't seem to be much
appetite for free speech in the Labour Party. Whether you agree or disagree
with Dianne Abbot, she should be entitled to an opinion and be able to express
it. The Conservative energy minister, Grant Shapps, who is Jewish, has accused
her of "casually spouting hateful anti-Semitism”
and Starmer has accused her of antisemitism.
While I don't necessarily share Ms Abbots point of view on
what constitutes racism, to accuse her of anti-semitism, is utter nonsense and
idiotic. Admittedly, the Jews and the Travellers didn't have to sit at the back
of the bus in Mississippi, but they finished up in the gas chambers in
Auschwitz and were considered sub-humans by the Nazis. Is this racism or
prejudice? I would say that it’s murder and genocide.
The Conservative Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, has been
criticised for making racist and inflammatory remarks about British-Pakistani
men and refugees and asylum seekers. She recently claimed that the majority of
perpetrators who sexually abuse children in grooming gangs are "almost all British-Pakistani." This
isn't backed up even by the Home Office's own research. A Home Office review in
2020, concluded that the majority of group-based child sex offending is
perpetrated by white offenders and noted that "while some studies suggest an over-representation of Asian and black
offenders compared with the overall population, it is not possible to draw
general conclusions because this data is not representative."
The Home Office have also been unable to confirm assertions
made by both Braverman and her predecessor, Priti Patel, that the vast majority
of refugees arriving in the UK by small boats or by other means, are "illegal economic migrants."
Britain opposed slavery in 1807, but in common with most major
nations in Europe, had been involved in the Atlantic slave trade. At the time
of Oliver Cromwell, in the 17th century, we'd also transported some Irish as
indentured slaves to the British colonies in the West Indies. Dianne Abbot
fails to mention black complicity in slavery. Since Egyptian times, Black
Africans had sold countless thousands of other Black African's into slavery,
first to Rome and then to Arab traders and then to the Europeans, who
transported them to the Americas. The Ottomans and Barbary pirates also had
their own slave trade and would sell white captives in the slave markets of
Tangiers.
In fairness to Dianne Abbot, the Jewish population of the UK -
if you can identify them - are not subject to stop and search in the way that
black people are in this country and neither do they tend to finish up in
prison. The anti-Zionist political activist, Tony Greenstein, says that
Britain's "Jews have become the most
privileged section of the white population. It is this that has led them to
move to the right politically." Although Greenstein believes that
Britain's Jews tend to be better educated, more affluent, have better jobs, and
live in better housing, compared to other white sections of British society,
this doesn't mean that they never experience anti-Semitism.
Both England and Scotland are now led by Asian men, one a
Muslim and the other a Hindu, but this doesn't mean that some people of Asian
origin or descent, do not experience racism.
Abbot had taken issue with a survey that found that high
numbers of Irish, Jewish, and Travellers, had reported suffering from racism.
Despite being a black woman, in a racist society, Dianne Abbot, has managed to
get to Cambridge and into the House of Commons, following a similar trajectory
to the former Conservative minister, Michael Portillo, who knew her at
Cambridge.
Clearly, racism in Britain is far more complicated and complex
than Dianne Abbot believes. Labour have condemned her comments calling them
"deeply offensive and wrong." She will now have to sit as an
independent MP pending an investigation. After unreservedly withdrawing her
remarks, Abbot blamed the errors in her letter, to "an initial draft being sent." She said:
"There is no
excuse, and I wish to apologise for any anguish caused. Racism takes many
forms, and it is completely undeniable that Jewish people have suffered its
monstrous effects, as have Irish people, Travellers, and many others."
I suspect that Abbot won't be treated as leniently as the
Jewish MP Margaret Hodge, who called the former Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, a
"fucking racist and an anti-Semite."
Corbyn is also being hounded out of the Labour Party.
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