South Yorkshire Mayor Oliver Coppard has responded to the now suspended Labour MP Diane Abbott after she suggested Jewish, Irish and Traveller people were not subject to racism “all their lives”.
Mr Coppard, a Jewish man and member of the Labour and Co-Operative party, said that he was very sorry to see the comments as the majority of his grandparents’ immediate family were murdered as a result of their faith.
“Different groups may experience racism differently. That does not diminish its effect, or our responsibility to name and fight it,” he said in a tweet on Sunday 23 April.
Abbott’s remarks were published in a letter to the Observer on Sunday and she has since apologised.
“I wish to wholly and unreservedly withdraw my written remarks and disassociate myself from them,” she said in a statement. “The errors arose in an initial draft being sent. But there is no excuse and I wish to apologise for any anguish caused.
“Racism takes many forms and it is completely undeniable that Jewish people have suffered its monstrous effects, as have Irish people, Travellers and many others.
“Once again, I would like to apologise publicly for the remarks and any distress caused as a result of them.”
In a previous interview to the Huffington Post in 2018, Mr Coppard discussed the state of the Labour Party in the year the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Jewish Leadership Council issued an open letter stating that the then leader of the Labour party Jeremy Corbyn was “repeatedly found alongside people with blatantly anti-Semitic views.”
The South Yorkshire Mayor said: “Until now I have always believed that the Labour Party is the best defence against the type of hatred that we saw in 1930s Nazi Germany, and the bigotry now growing again in other parts of the world.
“The Labour Party exists to represent the interests of the many, but that cannot mean silencing or disparaging the voices of the few, and the Jewish community are few.”
Labour officials will decide whether Diane Abbott can stand again at the next election after she lost the whip, pending investigation, for her comments.
Mr Coppard has previously warned of Jewish struggles being downplayed: “When the concerns of mainstream Jewish people and groups are dismissed as overblown smears, then our commitment to antisemitism will rightly remain in question.”
