Diane Abbott, a 71-year-old ally of former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, told the BBC yesterday that she stood by remarks she made in 2023 that resulted in her removal from the party for a year.

Abbott had written a letter at the time to a newspaper arguing that Jewish people and Traveller groups experience “prejudice” but “are not all their lives subjected to racism”.

She later apologised and withdrew the claim, which was widely condemned by her Labour colleagues after the years-long antisemitism scandal that had engulfed the party under Corbyn.

However, speaking in an interview published yesterday, Abbott said that in fact she didn’t look back on the incident with regret.

“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.”

Speaking to the Guardian newspaper, deputy prime minister Angela Rayner said she was “disappointed” by Abbott’s remarks.

“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 is a real challenge,” Rayner said.

A Labour Party spokesman said yesterday evening that Abbott would again be suspended by the party pending an investigation.

Earlier, they said the party would not tolerate antisemitism.

In a statement to BBC’s Newsnight, Abbott said it was “obvious this Labour leadership wants me out”.

The disciplinary action against Abbott comes just a day after Starmer suspended the Labour whip from four other MPs for disloyalty, in an effort to crack down on dissent in the party following a series of embarrassing U-turns forced by backbench lawmakers.

Speaking earlier when asked about those suspensions, the premier said the government had to “deal with people who repeatedly break the whip”, so that his Labour government could deliver on its plans.