Diane Abbott suspended as Labour MP.

[Petcha]

Fwiw I buy the first draft excuse. She's got form for fuck ups. Possibly cognitive issues connected with her diabetes, but what the hell do I or any of us know? I think what ska invita said above was what she was going for, and it might have been better expressed in the second/final draft.

I don't think it was a very good point to make even if it had been made well because it was always going to have an oppression olympics tang to it, and it rankles to see a published letter that seems to claim Jews and GRT folk can't experience racism.

Yes, I don't think anyone's claiming her excuse isn't true - that she accidentally hit send on an email to a national newspaper, given her past record for incompetence. And I also don't think anyone at all can blame Starmer for getting rid of her immediately given that one of his main pillars when he got the job was to get rid of anti-Semitism. The fact that it's surely the end of her political career is a nice side effect for him though.

 

[TopCat]

Diane was putting forward an established political position in rebuttal to a recent Guardian article that was advocating including Irish people and Travellers in simple definitions of groups affected by racism.

It’s not a new political view she advocated. It’s been around a long time and indeed has been pushed forward on these boards in the past.

Diane is just too thick to realise this is not 1985.

 

[skyscraper101]

Aside all the dodgy statements and general incompetence, she seems to me to have a very visible cognitive decline in the last few years. It's not a great look for any party having someone like that in the ranks. Conveniently, she handed this one to Starmer on a plate, just like Corbyn.

 

[Spymaster]

Or perhaps it's the sort of thing that someone who has had too much firsthand experience of specifically anti_ black racism might say ?

No, not that at all. What I said.

 

[xenon]

I know she gets a lot of stick for racist and probably misogynist reasons. But just handing your enemies ammunition like this, with this fuck wit it article. I don’t have much sympathy.

 

[WouldBe]

Even her apology is fucking weird. 'I wish to disassociate myself from the remarks'.

You made them you idiot

Schizophrenia?

 

[xenon]

I think the plan might have been to wake up with a sore head, read it, thank the Lord she didn't press send and delete it.

Well we’ve all had moments like that on urban. Sending it to a National newspaper slightly different to an ill-advised post.

 

[ska invita]

Yes, I don't think anyone's claiming her excuse isn't true - that she accidentally hit send on an email to a national newspaper, given her past record for incompetence. And I also don't think anyone at all can blame Starmer for getting rid of her immediately given that one of his main pillars when he got the job was to get rid of anti-Semitism. The fact that it's surely the end of her political career is a nice side effect for him though.

i think the exact opposite
her excuse sounds like bullshit
meanwhile starmer is a cunt and shouldnt be purging any elected MPs. Its up to the people of hackney to purge her, not this stalinist knight of the realm

 

[Sasaferrato]

i think the exact opposite
her excuse sounds like bullshit
meanwhile starmer is a cunt and shouldnt be purging any elected MPs. Its up to the people of hackney to purge her, not this stalinist knight of the realm

33,188 majority, 58.4% of votes cast.

 

[Fozzie Bear]

The "white people cant experience racism" argument is a fairly common one in radical black race politics. It would be interesting to the thread to post a better case made for it than the one Diane makes. Perhaps some high profile figure will make it in response.

IIRC (may be wrong) at the heart of it is the separation of discrimination and racism as two very different things. Racism is created at a particular historical point as a biologised scientific rationalised excuse by 'Enlightenment' europeans for slavery and other colonial oppressions on top.

The argument goes that oppression of Jewish people far predates this moment, but not on racialised grounds. And so on... Its gives the word 'racism' a very precise and historic meaning. However, this argument is one that needs making very precisely and Diane's letter is an example of it being made messily.

Whatever the ins and outs she's a gonner of course, sitting duck for the Starmlinist purge

It's not new, as many people have pointed out. I think you'd really need to include the ideas around the construction of whiteness too though, with different groups being considered "white" at different points. Including the Irish. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Irish-Became-White-Routledge-Classics/dp/0415963095

So the whole thing requires a lot more nuance. Hypothetically there may be some specific situations at different points in history and geography in which Irish people can reduce their exposure to racism in a way that black people can't. For example by appearing English and not opening their mouths, which is a form of racist oppression in itself.

Obviously the bit about anti-semitism predating racism is nonsense. It's worth exploring how anti-blackness and anti-semitism are different (for example anti-semitism is one of the few forms of racism in which the victims are seen to be insidiously powerful on a global level).

 

[Pickman's model]

i think the exact opposite
her excuse sounds like bullshit
meanwhile starmer is a cunt and shouldnt be purging any elected MPs. Its up to the people of hackney to purge her, not this stalinist knight of the realm

if he was a stalinist his politics would be markedly better than they are

 

[tim]

I'm not surprised to see expressions of this sort, and I feel it is a fairly normal response from anti-semites who want to be seen as progressive. I suppose Jewish people may well not experience structural racism, unlike Travellers (Romany Gypsies and Irish Travellers are ethnic groups under the Equality Act), but to say that they cannot experience racism is so odd as to be meaningless. So at best she's saying that you need, as an ethnic group, to experience structural racism at this point in time to experience any form of racism, but the difference structural/hate isn't that clear cut imho

Ban this one again please editor

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Yes, I don't think anyone's claiming her excuse isn't true - that she accidentally hit send on an email to a national newspaper, given her past record for incompetence. And I also don't think anyone at all can blame Starmer for getting rid of her immediately given that one of his main pillars when he got the job was to get rid of anti-Semitism. The fact that it's surely the end of her political career is a nice side effect for him though.

That letter is not anti-semitic. In any way. You can argue the merits of the ideas she's putting forwards, but the idea seems now to be doing the rounds that Abbott is racist. That is not a racist letter.

But this is par for the course from Starmer. He's throwing Jewish people out for being anti-semitic, so why not also throw black people out for being racist. After all, Starmer is the ultimate arbiter of the meanings of these things.

 

[Elpenor]

Ban this one again please editor

Who were they before?

 

[marty21]

Her constituency includes a fairly big Jewish population (Stamford Hill) , this won't go down well there . Idiotic letter from her , time she stepped down as an MP.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Her constituency includes a fairly big Jewish population (Stamford Hill) , this won't go down well there . Idiotic letter from her , time she stepped down as an MP.

It was stupid for her to send the letter, and the ideas in it have certain obvious problems (Nazi 'scientific' racism, anyone?), but fuck me are we not allowed to even have these discussions now? The letter was an error of judgement, but Starmer's reaction worries me far more.

 

[Tanya1982]

Her constituency includes a fairly big Jewish population (Stamford Hill) , this won't go down well there . Idiotic letter from her , time she stepped down as an MP.

It’s a very insular community, and things like mobile phones are generally configured to disable to internet (it’s not just any old Jewish suburb, but a very specific community), so it’s likely that most won’t know about it.

 

[ska invita]

Obviously the bit about anti-semitism predating racism is nonsense. It's worth exploring how anti-blackness and anti-semitism are different (for example anti-semitism is one of the few forms of racism in which the victims are seen to be insidiously powerful on a global level).

What bit about "anti-semitism predating racism nonsense" are you referring to? It starts fundamentally as a religious (not 'race') conflict no?
Anti-Semitism as a global elite conspiracy is a very modern aspect to historic anti-semitism though.

 

[Pickman's model]

Who were they before?

118118 I think

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Not that many of them are in the Labour Party (area has tory councillors), but a fair few Haredi Jews from Stamford Hill would get kicked out of Labour sharpish for antisemitism given their support for the Palestinians.

 

[nagapie]

As a (secular) Jew, I object to this as being painted as another left wing politician showing their anti semitic colours. She's not presented an already existing argument well and the media will reduce it right down to her being against the Jews, something her past record has not shown. This sort of thing is smoke and mirrors as usual to hide the real racist and anti semitic leanings in the party, starting with the consistent scapegoating of Jews to purge the party of its left wing members. Get rid of the left, blame it on the Jews - double the benefit for the conservative leaders of Labour like Starmer.

 

[Fozzie Bear]

It’s a very insular community, and things like mobile phones are generally configured to disable to internet (it’s not just any old Jewish suburb, but a very specific community), so it’s likely that most won’t know about it.

They will know about it through their Tory councillors and religious leaders soon enough.

 

[Sweet FA]

It’s a racist letter.

That is not a racist letter.

 

[Fozzie Bear]

What bit about "anti-semitism predating racism nonsense" are you referring to? It starts fundamentally as a religious (not 'race') conflict no?
Anti-Semitism as a global elite conspiracy is a very modern aspect to historic anti-semitism though.

Anti-semitism predates anti-black racism, for sure.

I am pretty sure that non-observant Jews were victims of anti-semitism since the outset. And the argument that there is no biological angle after the holocaust is a non-starter. (I am not saying this is anywhere near your own position!)

The letter is about what racism is now.

 

[Tanya1982]

They will know about it through their Tory councillors and religious leaders soon enough.

Yes, that’s probably true. But they won’t check the source, and they wouldn’t have regardless of how she put her arguments and however those were then presented by their leaders.

 

[oryx]

Yes, Abbott has been suspended not because those in charge of the Labour Party at the moment are shining beacons of anti-racism, but because it fits their agenda.

Okay for their own people to use a large image of an Asian man in a political ad referencing child abuse, suspend a higher ratio of Jewish members than non-Jewish, protect MPs who practise anti-GRT racism and so on.

Abbott's letter was IMHO completely wrong (I've come across this view on work training courses and challenged it) and shows an alarming lack of political nous. She should rightly be called out on it.

But this will be used as a reason to stop her standing for her constituency at the next election, exactly the same as has happened with Corbyn.

 

[andysays]

So what the betting that Hackney North and Stoke Newington CLP will end up having a new candidate imposed on them come the next General Election?

 

[Tanya1982]

Not that many of them are in the Labour Party (area has tory councillors), but a fair few Haredi Jews from Stamford Hill would get kicked out of Labour sharpish for antisemitism given their support for the Palestinians.

It’s not really support for Palestinians in that case. It’s anti Zionism because Israel is a secular creation rather than formed directly by God.

 

[Pickman's model]

It’s a very insular community, and things like mobile phones are generally configured to disable to internet (it’s not just any old Jewish suburb, but a very specific community), so it’s likely that most won’t know about it.

i'm led to believe that the hackney jewish community nonetheless have a grasp of what's going on from listening to the radio, watching the television, reading newspapers and indeed talking to one another

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Yes, Abbott has been suspended not because those in charge of the Labour Party at the moment are shining beacons of anti-racism, but because it fits their agenda.

Okay for their own people to use a large image of an Asian man in a political ad referencing child abuse, suspend a higher ratio of Jewish members than non-Jewish, protect MPs who practise anti-GRT racism and so on.

Abbott's letter was IMHO completely wrong (I've come across this view on work training courses and challenged it) and shows an alarming lack of political nous. She should rightly be called out on it.

But this will be used as a reason to stop her standing for her constituency at the next election, exactly the same as has happened with Corbyn.

It's not even so much about being called out, imo. Are we not allowed to have a discussion/debate/argument about this issue?

On this thread, it's been pointed out that DLR thinks it's a racist letter while I don't. Does that mean one or other of us needs to be 'called out'? We disagree. We're allowed to disagree. If DLR were following Starmer's lead, presumably he'd be calling for me to be banned from the thread, and quite possibly thrown off Urban.