Labour MP Diane Abbott faces call to resign over 'racist' tweet, 'white people love to play divide and rule', 2012, 5 days old, foot in mouth already

Dear All

2012 has got off to a rocky start for Labour MP Diane Abbott.

Five days into the New Year and she is already embroiled in a ‘race row’ over claims that she had been racist against white people.

The row flared up over a tweet she stuck up on twitter.

Diane Abbott is in my opinion a ‘race politician’; these people appear in all political parties who use racism to advance their political careers.

And Diane Abbott has been very successful in her career, because race politics uses fear so that if anyone criticises these people, they simply imply that any negative criticism of them must be because of their colour, not that the ‘message’ is wrong.

After firmly putting her foot in it on twitter, she has finally apologised and deleted her tweet today over claims that she had been racist against white people.

Apparently, the Labour Leader Ed Miliband wasn’t a happy chappy.

Ms. Abbott is the shadow minister for public health; however her political health might need a check up or a transplant.

Something is certainly failing upstairs.

In order to explain herself, she said she had been taken out of context, citing '19th century European colonial rule' being behind the message.

This is called carrying on digging a hole when you should stop, but luckily she was cut short when she received a phone call during an interview on live TV from her boss, Ed Miliband, who was said to be furious over the remarks.

Oh to listen into that gem.

An apology was swiftly issued.

The apology was sorry for 'for any offence caused' and not for posting the original tweet.

This is not good enough by a long chalk Ms. Abbott.

The tweet has since been deleted but luckily someone has kept a copy so, although gone from her account there is a permanent record.

There have been calls for her to resign, but that will fall on deaf ears, but she may be moved from her public health brief to the backbenches by Miliband which will depend on how this little storm plays down in the Westminster village.

Diane Abbott used to appear on This Week with Michael Portillo and Andrew Neil, in this context were she is a commentator on gossip and incidents she did well, she doesn’t like anyone disagree with her, she is gaffe prone but shadow health brief isn’t right for her. She is too much of a maverick and has a tendency to speak before thinking.

The Labour Party has also distanced itself from the MP's remarks.

A spokesman said:

“We disagree with Diane’s tweet. It is wrong to make sweeping generalisations about any race, creed, or culture. The Labour Party has always campaigned against such behaviour – and so has Diane Abbott.”

I think she should stand down, this doesn’t play well.

Stoking the fire, political blogger Guido Fawkes today accused Abbott of ‘slamming an entire group of people based on the colour of their skin’.

An entry on his blog continued:

“She is a shadow minister and represents a constituency that is 61% white”.

Adding:

“Sections 17 to 29 of the Public Order Act 1986 are pretty clear on statements like this.

'They cover deliberately provoking hatred of a racial group, distributing racist material to the public, and perhaps most notably in this case, inciting inflammatory rumours about an ethnic group, for the purpose of spreading racial discontent".

Guido likes to claim political scalps, however, I think Ms. Abbott will not fall today, she is one of those people who will survive, and the next gaffe is just around the corner anyway.

She should step down as Shadow Health Minister if she has any commonsense whatsoever.

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University