Diane Abbott suspended by Labour Party after racism comments
By: | Published: 2025-07-17 21:00:00 | Source: www.bbc.com
MP Diane Abbott has been suspended by the Labour Party pending an investigation into comments she made about racism, the BBC understands.
The move also means that Abbott will sit as an independent MP, known as losing the whip.
Labour said it would not be commenting “while this investigation is ongoing”.
It comes after Abbott said in a BBC interview: “I just think that it’s silly to try and claim that racism which is about skin colour is the same as other types of racism.”
She was speaking about a 2023 controversy, when she was suspended as a Labour MP for a year after comments she made about racism in a letter to a newspaper.
In that letter to the Observer newspaper, she wrote that Irish, Jewish and Traveller people “undoubtedly experience prejudice” that is “similar to racism”.
She wrote:…
