The thing to understand is they really mean it. Of course, politicians often dodge and dissemble, but they also hold beliefs that they hope to enact when in power.
Diane Abbott has found herself in trouble for one of those beliefs. On Sunday morning, the Labour MP had a letter published in the Observer in which she suggested that Irish people, Jews and Travellers are not subject to racism, comparing instead their experiences with that of redheads.
This was backed up by ahistorical comparisons. She continued: “In pre-civil rights America, Irish people, Jewish people and Travellers were not required to sit at the back of the bus.” Of course, there was no pre-assigned seating for the millions of Jews packed into cattle carts and sent to their deaths in Auschwitz, Belsen and Treblinka.
Abbott withdrew her remarks, claiming “errors arose in an initial draft being sent.” Given the implausibility of this apology – for example, it is unclear what the error was – she swiftly had the whip suspended. Speaking today at St Giles’ Trust in Camberwell, Labour leader Keir Starmer condemned the views as “antisemitic”.
Before we come to the politics, let’s start with the people. Hackney is home to one of the biggest Charedi Orthodox Jewish communities in the world, outside of Israel and New York. And many of those live in Stamford Hill, within Abbott’s constituency. As, of course, do thousands of people of Irish and Traveller descent. The idea that none of these communities experience racism either today or have done so historically would be a surprise to many of their members.
The confines of this newsletter mean I will not delve into debates over the concept of a hierarchy of racism. But it may be useful to note that there is a live EHRC investigation into UK holiday park operator Pontins over fears of racial discrimination against Gypsies and Travellers.
Meanwhile, the Community Security Trust, a charity that protects British Jews from antisemitism and related threats, recorded 1,652 anti-Jewish incidents last year. More than two a week occurred in Hackney, including attacks on a 14-year-old boy on his way to school and a 64-year-old man, who was left unconscious.
Abbott is a longtime ally of Jeremy Corbyn and in 2016 said it was a “smear against ordinary party members” to suggest “that the Labour Party has a problem with antisemitism.” Since then, Labour became the second party – following the BNP – to be investigated by the UK’s human rights watchdog. It was subsequently found to be responsible for “unlawful acts of discrimination and harassment“ in its handling of antisemitism.
Every story about antisemitism in Labour is a double-edged sword for Starmer. It clearly provides him with a further opportunity to demonstrate that the party has changed under his leadership. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine severe repercussions for Abbott had this incident occurred under Corbyn.
But it is, in my view, also a large and in some ways insoluble problem for the Labour leader. Because the reality is that, as recently as December 2019, Starmer was suggesting to the British people that they make Diane Abbott home secretary. Furthermore, that Jeremy Corbyn be prime minister and John McDonnell chancellor, while Seamus Milne and Andrew Fisher be given jobs in the heart of the British state.
Starmer would say he resolved to stay and fight. And there is some logic to this. Had every Corbynsceptic MP left the party under the previous administration, the moderate wing could not have won the subsequent leadership election.
The problem, of course, is that post-2016 and the Owen Smith challenge, it became not so much a stay and fight policy as stay and hope that the British people do what Labour MPs were either unable or unwilling to do. This involved campaigning to make prime minister a man many deemed unsuitable for high office, one the vast majority of British Jews viewed as prejudiced towards them.
We can all be better people going forward. But campaigning to make Corbyn prime minister is something that neither Starmer – nor his shadow cabinet colleagues, backbenchers, councillors and ordinary party members – can ever undo, no matter how tough a stance they take on antisemitism today.
In the comment pages, Stephen King describes Britain’s fight against inflation as cowardly and ahistorical. Tanya Gold says Hilary Mantel showed us how real talent can cut through personal hell. While Melanie McDonagh calls Twinings’s Lapsang Souchong tea decision a travesty.
And finally, we do the Coronation quiche taste test to see if the Royal special is worth the effort.
