Starmer gives his ‘allies’ a free pass on anti-Semitism, Diane Abbott claims

Diane Abbott has reignited her row with Sir Keir Starmer over anti-Semitism by suggesting “allies” of the Prime Minister are treated differently from his enemies when such accusations are made.

The Labour MP says in an autobiography that “a purely factional approach is adopted on the charge of anti-Semitism by this leadership”.

The comments, which could be interpreted as playing down the problem of anti-Semitism within the Labour Party, are likely to reopen the debate about whether Ms Abbott should have the whip withdrawn.

She had the whip suspended for more than a year after saying in a letter to the Observer last year that Jewish people experienced prejudice but not racism, and that it was not the same as racism experienced by black people.

Sir Keir restored the whip and allowed her to stand as a Labour candidate in the general election following a lengthy internal row.

In her memoir, A Woman Like Me, which is published on Thursday, Ms Abbott returns to the subject of her treatment by Sir Keir, suggesting she was unfairly singled out.

She writes: “We have seen repeatedly that allies of the current leadership are treated very differently when it comes to allegations of anti-Semitism, as compared to the Left in the party and the critics of the current leadership.

“It is widely discussed in Labour circles and beyond that a purely factional approach is adopted on the charge of anti-Semitism by this leadership, and one of the cases most invoked to prove its factionalism is the way I have been treated, many months after my original letter to The Observer.”

She justifies her stance by saying that the increasing death toll from the war in Gaza means that: “The attempt to silence critics of Israel with the charge of anti-Semitism has lost its force. Opposing genocide is not, and can never be, anti-Semitic. If anything, the assault on Gaza has clarified the issues related to charges of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party.”

Ms Abbott, who as the longest-serving female MP holds the title Mother of the House, was issued with a formal warning by Labour’s National Executive Committee over her comments in the Observer letter.

Sir Keir has been ruthless in dealing with those accused of anti-Semitism since becoming Labour leader, including permanently withdrawing the whip from his predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn, after he played down the scale of the problem in the party.

However, the Conservatives accused him of being weak and incapable of standing up to the Left when he restored the whip to Ms Abbott in May, a week after Rishi Sunak called the election.

She was re-elected as MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington with a majority of 15,090.

Ms Abbott also accuses Sir Keir of taking a “morally repugnant” stance on Israel rather than him risking accusations of anti-Semitism by criticising the country’s actions in Gaza.

She writes: “He remains constantly aware of the spectre of anti-Semitism that hangs over the party, and this makes it difficult for him to criticise the actions of the Israeli government, which by many accounts is committing severe and bloody war crimes and contravening international human rights law.

“Starmer doesn’t want a whisper of anti-Semitism against him and, in pursuit of this goal, has put himself at odds with public opinion and with the party membership in general. To some degree, this is merely the continuation of Blair’s ‘shoulder to shoulder’ position with the US in the Iraq war, but the death toll has been so enormous and the televised tactics so appalling that Starmer’s unwillingness to break from the Tory/US line has horrified far greater numbers of people.”

She says that in one interview Sir Keir supported the Israeli tactic of cutting off food and water supplies to Gaza, “which is widely understood to be a breach of international law and basic decency” and “nothing less than morally repugnant”.

She acknowledges that Sir Keir has said his words were taken out of the context of his response to the question of whether Israel had a right to defend itself.

In a further dig at Sir Keir, she says that in discussions with Michel Barnier, the then EU commissioner in charge of Brexit negotiations, Sir Keir, who was shadow Brexit secretary, spoke like “the Brit abroad who talks loudly in English so that the silly foreigner can understand”.

Mr Barnier’s team, she suggests, felt that Sir Keir “talked at great length and with huge confidence, while understanding very little about Europe”.

Elsewhere in the memoir, Ms Abbott describes how Mr Corbyn had to be persuaded to run for the Labour leadership by members of the hard Left of the party, and that his response after arm-twisting from colleagues was: “Oh, all right.”

She also reveals that during a relationship with Mr Corbyn in the late 1970s, she complained that they never enjoyed date nights as a couple, and his response was to take her to Highgate Cemetery “and proudly show me the tomb of Karl Marx”.

A Conservative Party spokesman said: “Keir Starmer clearly wanted to ditch Diane Abbott as a Labour MP at the General Election but caved in to press pressure when it became a media circus.

“Now she is alleging that Starmer’s Labour is doing the exact same thing as Corbyn’s and treating anti-Semitism complaints differently depending on which faction of the Labour party the accused belongs to.

“These are serious allegations from an MP Starmer claims to believe is a ‘trailblazer’ and he must address them.”