Is there any way back for Diane Abbott in the Labour Party?

The MP has been suspended for suggesting Jewish people are not subjected to racism. Adam Forrest looks at whether she will be left out in the cold with her friend Jeremy Corbyn

Diane Abbott at the Labour Party conference in 2018 (PA)

Diane Abbott was the subject of Withnail and I “We’ve gone on holiday by mistake” memes on Sunday after a letter she had written suggesting that Jewish people are not subjected to proper racism was published in a national newspaper, after which she claimed that she hadn’t really meant to write it at all.

The left-wing MP said she had accidentally sent an “initial draft” of a letter to The Observer, in which she suggested that Jewish people were subject only to the same sort of prejudice as “redheads”, adding that they had not been trafficked and placed in manacles on slave ships.

In a surreal U-turn, following the instant outrage elicited by the letter, she apologised and said it was “completely undeniable” that Jewish people had suffered the “monstrous effects” of racism. But it proved too little too late.