28 April 2023 , 13:29
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A former Labour MP who was the victim of vile anti-Semitic abuse has told how she does not want Diane Abbott’s career ruined over the latest anti-Semitism row to hit the party.
Ms Abbott, 69, has been stripped of the Labour whip over comments she made suggesting Jews had not suffered a lifetime of racism.
The row could see her kicked out of the party and unable to stand as the Labour candidate at the next general election - ending her parliamentary career which began when she was elected to the Commons in 1987.
Baroness Ruth Anderson, who as Ruth Smeeth was MP for Stoke-on-Trent North from 2015 to 2019, said: “I don't want her political career to end like this. I find all of this so sad.”
The Labour peer, who is a Shadow Minister in the Lords, said the row engulfing her ex-colleague was “thoroughly depressing on every level”.
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“Diane and I, we’re not on the same wing of the Labour Party - she is friends with lots of people who have made my life quite difficult,” she told GB News in an interview to be broadcast on Sunday.
Baroness Ruth Anderson is vice-chairwoman of Jewish Labour (AFP via Getty Images)“But she was also the first black woman to be elected and she is an icon in her own lifetime.
“That is an extraordinary thing, and I don't want her political career to end like this.”
Speaking to TV host Gloria De Piero, who was also a Labour MP, Baroness Anderson, who is vice-chairwoman of Jewish Labour, admitted she was “tired of being used as a political football within the party that I have dedicated my life to” as it is mired into another anti-Semitism row.
“We need to move on from this chapter - I want us to be talking about how we form a government, I want us to be talking about how we beat the Tories,” she said.
“I want us to be talking about how we're going to fix the communities that I live in, I want us to provide a level of hope for the future, for the country.
“This is sad and miserable and takes us back to a place I don't want to be in.
“We need to find a way through this, we need to find a way through where there is a level of dignity for Diane too, because it's really important for her community.
As Ruth Smeeth, she was an MP from 2015 to 2019 (Getty Images Europe)“There is no hierarchy of racism - racism is racism.
“I want everybody to just move forward. We're meant to be on the same side.”
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Labour leader Keir Starmer removed the whip from former Shadow Home Secretary Ms Abbott after branding her comments anti-Semitic.
She suggested in a letter in The Observer that Jewish, Irish and Traveller people were not subject to racism "all their lives".
After prompting widespread criticism for her comments, Ms Abbott apologised claiming "errors arose" in her initial draft letter to the newspaper.
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