Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- PART I Conceptual and Theoretical Issues
- PART II Racism and the Hostile Environment
- PART III Austerity
- Conclusion: Hostility and Austerity as Interrelated Concepts – Some Examples and Some Solutions
- Postscript: Election 2024 – Labour Wins, Far-Right Riots and the Tories Elect a New Leader
- Notes
- References
- Index
1 - The Multifaceted Nature of UK Racism
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 September 2025
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- PART I Conceptual and Theoretical Issues
- PART II Racism and the Hostile Environment
- PART III Austerity
- Conclusion: Hostility and Austerity as Interrelated Concepts – Some Examples and Some Solutions
- Postscript: Election 2024 – Labour Wins, Far-Right Riots and the Tories Elect a New Leader
- Notes
- References
- Index
Summary
Introduction
In April 2023, Labour MP Diane Abbott wrote a letter to The Observer in response to an article in that newspaper by Tomiwa Owolode, entitled ‘Racism in Britain is not a black and white issue. It's far more complicated’. Here is the letter in full:
Tomiwa Owolade claims that Irish, Jewish and Traveller people all suffer from ‘racism’. They undoubtedly experience prejudice. This is similar to racism and the two words are often used as if they are interchangeable. It is true that many types of white people with points of difference, such as redheads, can experience this prejudice. But they are not all their lives subject to racism. In pre-civil rights America, Irish people, Jewish people and Travellers were not required to sit at the back of the bus. In apartheid South Africa, these groups were allowed to vote. And at the height of slavery, there were no white-seeming people manacled on the slave ships.
Hours after her remarks were published, Abbott apologised and claimed they were made in error and that an ‘initial draft’ of her thoughts had been sent for publication by accident. Nevertheless, she had the Party Whip suspended and an investigation was launched.
An anonymous letter to The Observer's sister newspaper, The Guardian, captured the absurdity of Abbott's claim with particular respect to antisemitism:
No, my ancestors did not have to sit on the back of the bus in pre-civil rights America, and were allowed to vote in apartheid South Africa, but I find both facts irrelevant. … My family came to the UK from Białystok, Poland, a city where more than 99% of Jews were exterminated.
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- Racism and AusterityTory Ideology, Migrants, Muslims and the Working Class, pp. 13 - 24Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2025
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