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Diane Abbott Reinstated to Labour After Antisemitism Suspension

Diane Abbott has been readmitted to the Labour Party after over a year's suspension for claiming Jewish and Traveller communities experience prejudice rather than racism.

Eleni Papadaki-Van Der Merwe Staff Writer

JULY 31, 2026 AT 12:21 AM

Diane Abbott, the veteran left-wing MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, had the Labour whip restored following an internal disciplinary process, according to Susanna Siddell writing in GB News.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer expelled Abbott from the parliamentary party in April 2023 after she claimed that Irish, Jewish and Traveller communities did not experience racism but rather “prejudice” which was merely “similar to racism”. The remarks provoked outrage across the political spectrum and within Labour itself, forcing Abbott to retract them at the time.

However, when questioned about the controversy in 2025, the Mother of the House refused to back down from her original position. She insisted there was a fundamental distinction between what she characterised as colour-based racism and other forms of discrimination.

Abbott argued that while a Black person’s race is immediately visible on the street, members of Traveller or Jewish communities cannot be identified by appearance alone unless one engages with them directly. She maintained these constituted “different types of racism”.

The MP’s readmission to Labour came with conditions. In a statement released today, Abbott acknowledged receiving a formal warning for a separate social media post in which she mistakenly referred to the Israeli Defence Force as the “Jewish Defence Force”.

She apologised for the error, stating she was “deeply sorry for any hurt caused” by language that conflated the actions of the Israeli state with the Jewish community as a whole. Abbott described herself as a lifelong anti-racist.

The disciplinary process was conducted according to party regulations and approved through Labour’s independent review mechanism. Abbott’s return marks the end of a year-long exile that had sidelined one of the party’s most prominent backbenchers.

The decision to restore the whip will likely prove controversial within both Labour and the wider Jewish community, given Abbott’s refusal to fully repudiate her original comments distinguishing between different categories of racism based on visible characteristics.

With information from GB News

Eleni Papadaki-Van Der Merwe

She was born in 1986 in Johannesburg, South Africa. She is the granddaughter of an immigrant from Crete who settled in the Greek community of Johannesburg (one of the largest in Africa). She holds a bachelor’s degree in International Relations and Political Science from the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in Johannesburg and a master’s degree in Journalism from Rhodes University in Grahamstown. She began her career at English-language media outlets in Johannesburg, covering politics and economics, with a focus on issues related to migration and the diaspora. She moved to Athens in 2015 to “return to her roots,” initially to pursue graduate studies, and has remained there permanently. She is married to an Afrikaner; they have two children and live in the southern suburbs of Athens.