Is there any way back for Diane Abbott in the Labour Party?

The MP has been suspended for suggesting Jewish people are not subjected to racism. Adam Forrest looks at whether she will be left out in the cold with her friend Jeremy Corbyn

Diane Abbott at the Labour Party conference in 2018 (PA)

Diane Abbott was the subject of Withnail and I “We’ve gone on holiday by mistake” memes on Sunday after a letter she had written suggesting that Jewish people are not subjected to proper racism was published in a national newspaper, after which she claimed that she hadn’t really meant to write it at all.

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.

So what happens next? Can Abbott be brought back into the fold? Or does she face the same fate as her close ally Jeremy Corbyn, who has been blocked from standing as a Labour MP at the next election?

Labour leader Keir Starmer is under pressure not to hide behind the investigation for too long, given that the facts appear to be clear. Labour MPs told The Independent that the process should be carried out “quickly” and that any punishment should be implemented without delay.

Some have been sympathetic to Abbott, accepting of her prompt display of contrition. And not only those on the left. Tony Blair’s former political operations director John McTernan said Abbott had been subjected to “vile racist abuse throughout her career, and her apology should be accepted in the spirit it is offered”.

But others have not been not so forgiving. The Campaign Against Antisemitism said her suspension must be “the first step towards her expulsion” – accusing Abbott and her allies on the left of failing to accept “how bad antisemitism had become, because they do not even acknowledge that it is a form of racism”.

Jake Wallis Simons, editor of The Jewish Chronicle, also called for Abbott to be expelled from the party. “I can’t really see what is to investigate,” he told Sky News. “It seems to me as if you don’t just say things like that by mistake.”

Starmer will be reluctant to absolve his old shadow cabinet colleague quickly, having made such a strong pitch to the electorate about stamping out the shame of antisemitism. Simply accepting Abbott’s apology at face value, without making a fuss, is unlikely to be sufficient.

Former Labour MP Luciana Berger, who rejoined the party earlier this year after having left during the Corbyn years, called on Starmer to “do even more” to overcome antisemitism, telling Times Radio she “struggled to see a way in which [the letter] could be explained or would be acceptable”.

A former policy adviser to Corbyn, Andrew Fisher, said Abbott’s comments were “crass and offensive”, but pleaded for “consistency” within the disciplinary process. He pointed out that Trevor Philips had been readmitted to Labour on the basis of an apology after he referred to Muslims in Britain as “a nation within a nation”.

Other relevant cases that will be referred to in the days ahead are those of Rupa Huq – who was reinstated after a profuse apology for calling senior Tory Kwasi Kwarteng “superficially Black” – and Neil Coyle, who remains suspended despite apologising for remarks he made to a journalist from a British-Chinese background.

Left-wing Labour figures sympathetic to Abbott’s position fear she could be suspended indefinitely in a bid to undermine her selection as a candidate at the next general election.

There is suspicion that some of the MPs currently suspended by Labour have been subjected to long disciplinary processes so that it becomes easier for more compliant candidates to challenge their reselection ahead of the vote, which is expected to take place in 2024.

Abbott’s case may be too high-profile to be put on the back burner for long. But it looks likely that she will be asked to explain herself, and her beliefs on racism and antisemitism, very thoroughly.

Failure to offer another, fuller apology – one without equivocation – could see her left out in the cold. Even if she does offer a vigorous mea culpa, it may be that Starmer and his team will deem this particular transgression too toxic to forgive.