Will Diane Abbott now face the same fate as Corbyn?

It’s the fate of Labour MP Diane Abbott rather than former deputy prime minister Dominic Raab that is dominating the news this afternoon. Although the Sunday papers are filled with details of the series of events that led Raab to tender his resignation following the report into allegations of bullying against him, it’s a letter from the former shadow home secretary – and key Jeremy Corbyn ally – sent in to the Observer that is now making waves. As Steerpike documents, Abbott said in response to a comment piece from last week’s paper suggesting ‘Irish, Jewish and Traveller people all suffer from racism’, that prejudice is not ‘interchangeable’ with racism.

Since then, Abbott has had the whip removed, despite issuing a full apology online in which she ‘wholly and unreservedly’ withdraws the remarks and argues that the ‘errors arose’ from an ‘initial draft’ that was not remedied. However, this defence has not met much sympathy among Labour whips or in the Leader’s office – with a full investigation to follow.