Diane Abbott was suspended as a Labour MP on Sunday for "antisemitic" comments made in a letter published in the Observer.
As calls for the MP to resign reach a crescendo, GB News has pulled together some of the most controversial comments previously made by the Hackney North & Stoke Newington representative that Labour failed to act on.
On Russia/Ukraine
On the war in Ukraine, Abbott said “claims that Russia is the aggressor should be treated sceptically” due to Nato troops on Russia’s borders.
Abbott was then one of 11 Labour MPs to sign a letter sponsored by Stop The War that claimed the invasion was the West’s fault. Starmer failed to take immediate action and instead responded by threatening removal of the whip should the MPs not withdraw their names - which they did.
Diane Abbott faces questions as her antisemitism excuse disintegrates
PAThe former shadow home secretary also made a blunder last year when she managed to confuse which country Russia had invaded.
Speaking to the BBC, the MP wrongly claimed that Russia was invading Croatia.
On China
Undaunted by entering geopolitical hot water, Abbott told a “Trump’s War on China” Zoom call in 2020 that Britain’s offer of citizenship to those from Hong Kong looking to flee a crackdown on free speech by Beijing was driven by “anti-Chinese” views.
Meanwhile Abbott was forced to apologise for speaking on another ‘No Cold War’ call with Uighur persecution deniers.
Abbott also endorsed a Stop The War petition in 2021 that hit out at “increasingly aggressive statements and actions being taken by the US government in regard to China” and called for the US to “step back from this threat of a Cold War”.
Back in 2008, she told the BBC: “I suppose that some people would judge that on balance Mao did more good than harm.”
Mao was responsible for the cultural revolution and a massive decline in agricultural output that led to famine and the deaths of millions.
On racism
Abbott was recently lost the Labour whip for writing in a letter that Irish, Jewish and Traveller people do not experience discrimination all their lives but face prejudice on a level akin to redheads.
The letter was swiftly branded “antisemitic”, “deeply offensive and wrong” by the Labour party, and Abbott was suspended from the parliamentary party after she put out an unconvincing apology.
But the comment are far from her only controversial ones on racism.
Taking to Twitter In 2012, Abbott said: “White people love playing ‘divide & rule’ we should not play their game #tacticalcolonialism”.
This is a sentiment she would return to in 2020 on Zoom once more where she told some Labour members: “Time after time in the past 32 years I’ve seen efforts of people to organise disrupted by white people playing the ‘divide and rule’ card, and this time we can’t allow that to happen.”
Diane Abbott has been an MP since 1987
PA
Abbott also incensed cabbies in a 2012 tweet insinuating their collective racism: “Dubious of black people claiming they’ve never experienced racism. Ever tried hailing a taxi I wonder?”
Steve McNamara, of the Licensed Taxi Drivers Association, described the comment as “at worst, racist, and at best, stupid.”
In 2020, Abbott lambasted Parliament for “cruel and potentially dangerous” mass deportation of convicted foreign criminals to Jamaica, before Home Office minister Chris Philip reminded her that back in 2007 she had, in fact, voted for the very legislation that demands the government take this action.
In 2019, Abbott told Parliament: “I’ve always argued that evidence based stop and search has a very important role to play”, but tweeted two months prior that “stop and search does not bring down levels of knife crime.”
