In April 2023, Diane Abbott, the UK’s first Black female Member of Parliament (MP), wrote a letter to The Observer that caused a political storm. In it, she distinguished the racism experienced by “people of color” from the prejudice suffered by Jewish, Irish and Traveller communities. Her words were blunt: “They undoubtedly experience prejudice. This is similar to racism and the two words are often used as if they are interchangeable. It is true that many types of white people with points of difference, such as redheads, can experience this prejudice. But they are not all their lives subjected to racism.”

The backlash was immediate and severe. Sir Keir Starmer, leader of the Labour Party, called the letter “antisemitic”. Abbott was suspended and lost the party whip, effectively removing her from the parliamentary Labour group. She later apologized “unreservedly” for the letter, withdrew its content and said the drafting had been an “initial version” sent in error. Despite this, she has remained outside the Labour fold.

The controversy raises a deeper question: Was she justified in distinguishing between different forms of discrimination? The assumption behind the criticism is that all forms of racism and prejudice are equal and must be treated as such. But Abbott’s argument, clumsily expressed, perhaps, suggests that racism is far from a uniform phenomenon. It can take many forms, some structural, others cultural, some visible, others hidden. The character of racism shifts according to time, place and other contextual variables. We might properly refer to the plural racisms.

Abbott’s argument was not that antisemitism, anti-Irish or anti-Traveller prejudice were not real, damaging or impactful, but that racism directed at people of color, particularly Blacks and South Asians, is historically different in Britain and persists in surreptitious, yet systemic ways and continues to have consequences. The question is not whether Abbott’s wording was offensive. It is whether her central claim has merit.

Race, racism and visibility

Since the postwar era, Britain has seen significant immigration from its former colonies in Africa, the Caribbean and South Asia. These migrants were visibly different from the white majority and quickly became targets of both social hostility and institutional exclusion. Even state policy itself reflected what was, in the 1960s, called racialism or racial discrimination. Housing policies, police practices and labor market discrimination routinely disadvantaged them. This was not simply personal animus. It was systemic and legal. At least until 1965, when legislation outlawed “racial discrimination.” The legislation’s scope was expanded in 1968 and, again, in 1976.

Abbott’s point is that this form of discrimination was not just prejudice: it was racism, specifically designed to maintain a racial hierarchy with white Britons at the top. The “weaponization” of the spurious concept of race, as Abbott implies, was a powerful tool for dispossessed whites seeking scapegoats for their misfortunes, as unemployment rose.

Abbott’s key distinction is visibility. Jews, Irish and Travellers have faced serious and sometimes violent discrimination in British history. But, for the most part, they were not physically distinguishable from other white Britons. This did not make their suffering any less real, but it did make it easier, in some circumstances, to “pass” or blend into mainstream society. Black and South Asian people had no such option. They were and remain instantly legible as Other in a society that codes whiteness as normal. 

This visibility has and continues to have profound consequences. Racial profiling, media stereotyping, criminalization, over-policing and underrepresentation are all facilitated by the ability to mark people visually. Discrimination against Jews or Irish people has typically taken different forms, often cultural, religious or ethnic rather than strictly racial. The Holocaust and pogroms across Europe demonstrate that antisemitism can be just as deadly. But the mechanisms of marginalization differ.

Abbott’s error

Abbott’s error was in appearing to rank oppressions, a dangerous misstep given the severe and distinct forms of prejudice faced by various groups. Yet her underlying insight holds considerable weight: racism directed at people of color, particularly those of African and Caribbean descent, in Britain was historically and globally justified by pseudo-scientific theories about biological difference.

These theories were based on the premise that the world’s population was divisible into distinguishable groups called “races,” a concept then used to enforce a strict hierarchy. This racialized thinking gave anti-Black discrimination a unique, pervasive force — deeply embedding itself in institutions, legal frameworks and social structures over centuries, spanning slavery, colonialism and post-colonial migration.

Discrimination against the Jewish or the Irish, while undeniably severe and sometimes involving racialized caricatures and theories of their “inferiority” at certain historical junctures, did not develop with the same epic duration or global systemic reach as the ideologies underpinning the transatlantic slave trade and its enduring legacies.

The visible and indelible nature of Blackness, forged under conditions of chattel slavery and subsequent systemic oppression, solidified a distinct form of racial hierarchy that made it virtually impossible to escape through assimilation, distinguishing it from the historical prejudices faced by other white ethnic groups who, over time, often achieved greater integration.

The politics of antisemitism

Antisemitism is not just a relic of the past. In Britain, the US and across Europe, it remains a live threat, as evidenced by the recent spike in antisemitic incidents during periods of the Middle East conflict. The Labour Party, under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, was beset with accusations it had tolerated or failed to respond adequately to antisemitism in its ranks. The 2020 Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) report concluded that Labour had broken equalities law, a damning indictment that forced internal reform and public apologies.

This context partly explains the reaction to Abbott’s letter. Her remarks were interpreted as minimizing the suffering of Jewish people, undermining the seriousness of antisemitism and echoing the logic of those who sought to relegate it to a subsidiary type of bigotry. The optics were politically abominable, not least because Labour was attempting to rebuild trust with Jewish communities under Starmer’s leadership.

Yet, in this hypersensitive political climate, details risk being lost. Abbott did not deny that Jews face prejudice. Her argument was not dismissive; she tried (in an admittedly imprecise and perhaps inadvertently provocative way) to distinguish between the types of discrimination different groups confronted. Her critics responded as if any deviation from the view that all prejudice is equal is itself a form of bigotry.

But this homogenizing approach obscures, rather than clarifies, understanding. Racism is not a single experience or a uniform category. It is historically contingent, culturally shaped and unevenly distributed. We might properly use the plural racisms. 

No stranger to controversy

Abbott is no stranger to controversy. As a pioneering Black politician, she has often been held to impossible standards, facing abuse pretty much throughout her career. According to Amnesty International, she has the unenviable distinction of receiving more online hate than any other female politician. Her suspension from Labour can’t be separated from this longer history of scrutiny, marginalization and misrepresentation.

Yes, Abbott’s letter was inelegant in its expression. But her fundamental argument that racism directed at people of color in Britain has a different genealogy and impact than other forms of prejudice deserves more than disciplinary action. It deserves critical discussion. There is a risk that, in policing speech about racism and other bigotries, we enforce a new orthodoxy that brooks no difference of analysis or perspective.

More broadly, the episode reflects a troubling shift in British political culture: Away from thoughtful engagement and toward thoughtless punishment. Rather than explore whether Abbott’s claims had intellectual, historical or empirical grounding, party leaders moved hastily to condemn and exclude. This may have restored short-term political capital, but it did little to advance public understanding of racism or, for that matter, anti-racism.

Abbott remains suspended from the parliamentary party more than a year later. Her case has become, in a sense, symbolic, not just of Labour’s internal politics, but of the wider struggle over how racism is defined, by whom and to what ends. And how we should respond to it, even in its vestigial forms. In a society still challenged by its colonial past and present inequalities, these questions can’t be settled by fiat.

So we return to the original question: Was Diane Abbott right? No, not in every word. But in her central claim that racism against people of color in Britain has distinct historical roots and lived consequences, she was not wrong either. While all forms of discrimination are harmful and abhorrent, Abbott’s thoughts prompt an uncomfortable examination of the precise language we use to describe interlocking systems of oppression. 

Ellis Cashmore’s “The Destruction and Creation of Michael Jackson” is published by Bloomsbury. One of his earlier books is “The Logic of Racism.”

[Kaitlyn Diana edited this piece]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.