A renewed “austerity drive” will bring an increase in racism with ethnic minorities “bearing the brunt of the Government’s attacks”, Diane Abbott has said.
In a message to a fringe meeting at the Labour Party conference on Sunday, the veteran Labour MP warned that the Government’s promise that “things will only get worse” presented a “grim outlook” for ethnic minorities in the UK.
She said: “We are in a very difficult period. There is both a renewed war drive and a renewed austerity drive.
“Whenever either of these happens, they are always accompanied by an increase in racism. Now that both are happening simultaneously, black and Asian people in this country, as well as Muslims, are bearing the brunt of the Government attacks.”
Left-wing Labour MPs such as Ms Abbott have accused the Government of embarking on a renewed round of austerity as the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, seeks to impose spending restraint on Whitehall.
But the Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer insisted during a reception at the start of the Labour conference that he would not return to the economic policies of previous Conservative administrations.
Sunday’s meeting, organised by the campaign group Stand Up To Racism, also heard from Labour National Executive Committee member Mish Rahman, who accused the new Government of contributing to a political climate that made this summer’s riots “inevitable”.
He said: “Starmer’s Labour seems to have embraced the current debate by contributing throwing its own fuel onto the bin fire by promising their own blitz on illegal immigration.”
Accusing the Labour leadership of adopting right-wing rhetoric, he said: “Our fear now is seriously what (Nigel) Farage says today, the Tories will say tomorrow, and Labour may legislate the day after.”
Both Ms Abbott and Mr Rahman, along with other speakers, called on Labour members to press the Government to do more to combat racism in the wake of the summer’s riots.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel