Is There Any Way Back To The Fold For Disgraced Abbott?

The Labour MP has been suspended for her suggestion that Jewish people are not subjected to racism. Adam Forrest looks at whether she will be forgiven or left out in the cold proper racism was published in a national newspaper, after which she claimed that she hadn’t really meant to write it at all.

- Adam Forrest

The left-wing MP said she had accidentally sent an “initial draft” of a letter to The Observer, in which she suggested that Jewish people were subject only to the same sort of prejudice as “redheads”, adding that they had not been trafficked and placed in manacles on slave ships.

In a surreal U-turn, following the instant outrage elicited by the letter, she apologised and said it was “completely undeniable” that Jewish people had suffered the “monstrous effects” of racism. But it proved too little too late. Labour suspended the whip pending an investigation. The Board of Deputies of British Jews said Abbott’s apology was “entirely unconvincing”, while commentator David Baddiel said her remarks reflected a pernicious belief that antisemitism is not racism.