Why Diane Abbott Was Wrong About Racism in Britain

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Diane Abbott, a far left labor politician who was one of the closest allies of Jeremy Corbyn famously took a bicycling holiday in East Germany. She wrote a letter that utterly denied the possibility of genuine racism against Jews or against travel to people and against other groups. And now she's been removed from her position as leader of a Labor Party. The reason why she was wrong about this is that anti-seamites themselves see Jewish people as an inferior race," he says.

Tomiwa Owolade is a writer and author of the forthcoming book This is Not America: Why Black Lives in Britain Matter.

In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Tomiwa Owolade discuss how some popular forms of anti-racist thinking can obscure which groups are struggling most; how Labour MP Diane Abbott’s response to an article of Owolade’s in The Guardian led to the Labour MP’s formal censure by her party; and what Americans can learn from Britain on issues of race (and Britons from America).

This transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.

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