Diane Abbott suspended from Labour after doubling down on suggestion Jews don’t experience racism

However, in a BBC interview this week, Abbott insisted she did not regret the comments, which she originally claimed had been part of an earlier draft of the letter sent in error, “at all”.

"Clearly, there must be a difference between racism which is about colour and other types of racism because you can see a Traveller or a Jewish person walking down the street, you don't know,” she said.

"You don't know unless you stop to speak to them or you're in a meeting with them.

"But if you see a black person walking down the street, you see straight away that they're black. They are different types of racism.”

And, asked whether her original remarks were wrong, she responded: “I just think that it's silly to try and claim that racism which is about skin colour is the same as other types of racism.

"I just... I don't know why people would say that."

The Hackney North and Stoke Newington MP also said she has become “a bit weary of people trying to pin the antisemitic label” on her and insisted that she had “spent a lifetime fighting racism of all kinds and in particular fighting antisemitism”.

Abbott was shadow home secretary at the height of the antisemitism scandal that engulfed the Labour Party and repeatedly backed then-leader Jeremy Corbyn against allegations that he had allowed Jew-hatred to spread unchecked among its left-wing factions.

A Labour Party spokesperson said: “Diane Abbott has been administratively suspended from the Labour Party, pending an investigation. We cannot comment further while this investigation is ongoing.”

Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner added that it was “not good” that Abbott had seemingly gone back on the earlier apology and said she was “disappointed” by the interview.

"There’s no place for antisemitism in the Labour party, and obviously the Labour party has processes for that,” said Rayner, adding: “Diane had reflected on how she’d put that article together, and said that ‘was not supposed to be the version’, and now to double down and say: ‘Well, actually I didn’t mean that. I actually meant what I originally said,’ I think it is a real challenge.”