By Aaron Miller-
Diane Abbott has said that the royal household are not up to date with racial issues.
The Labour MP was speaking to CNN’s John Berman about her own experience with racism during an interview with CNN today.
Ms Abbott, who has herself suffered plenty of online racial abuse, was said by Amnesty to have been the most abused female Mp on line during the 2017 election.
Britain’s first and experienced MP told Berman that the royal household is not up to date with race issues, and recommended that Buckingham Palace ”clear out” of many of their aids, equerries and private secretaries, whom she blamed for not sticking up for Meghan Markle in the face of regular media attack.
Abbott came out to support Harry and Meghan following the interview with Oprah Winfrey. She criticised the negative daily press coverage about her, which she said in addition to online negative comments, ”distorts your position and presumes you are not human”.
Harry and Meghan had blamed the royal family as a whole for not sticking up for them, but Ms Abbott narrowed the blame to other members of the royal household, who she felt were more at fault.
The MP later in the interview said she did not think the royal family is racist, naming Prince Phillip, The Queen and Prince Charles, amongst those she said she did not believe were racist.
She said: ‘You have to remember that Meghan Markle got relentless media harassment. There wasn’t a day there wasn’t a negative story about her in the newspapers.
And ofcourse the background of that was awful stuff online. And I’ve been in a similar situation because of being as the first prominent black female member of parliament, and I know how awful it feels. I can understand why Prince Harry and Meghan thought they had to leave.
Reacting to Prince William’s announcement today that the royal family is not racist, she said:
”I do not think for instance the Prince or the Queen is racist, actually she is Head Of the multi-cultural Common Wealth. I know that means a lot to her I don’t think Prince Charles is racist, he’s always been involved in all his work very concerned with diversity and multiculturalism.
But it’s not just that, it’s about the royal household, and hundreds of equerry and aids, advisers, private secretaries’.
She continued: I don’t think the royal household is up to date on thinking around race, and I don’t think many of them could accept a mixed -race woman marrying into royalty, and that was the problem.
Discussion Of Racism
When asked how the royal family can deal with the whole matter privately, when they are a public institution, she responded: ‘Well, I understand that the Queen wants to deal privately with her grandson, but as you say it is also a public institution, and we need to hear quite soon more from Buckingham palace about how they are discussing racism, and what they are going to do.
For instance, I think they need to clear out some of the aids who made things much worse, and refused to defend Meghan in the media”.
Ms Abbott later described the way Meghan was treated as ”very distasteful”, adding that the royal household had not had the space that the other institutions had following the Black Lives Matter Movement (BLM)to engage the issue of race properly.
Deal
Ms Abbott shares a common experience with the Dutch and Duchess Of Sussex when it comes to extreme racial abuse online and negative press coverage.
However, negative press coverage about the Labour MP is usually related to her political stance or criticism of her performance during a television interview. Some others may be motivated by racism.
The Labour MP in 2019 accused a BBC Question Time audience of being racist against her, saying she had been unfairly mocked before the show and interrupted more times than any other panellist.
Some critics who analysed the Question Time footage, suggested the treatment she faced was a reflection of a negative perception of her political competence and the arguments she was actually making on the show.
Memoire
Ms Abbott has signed a deal to write a memoir choreographing her life from a young girl to eventual career as Parliamentarian MP. Penguin imprint Viking will publish A Woman Like Me in summer 2022, to mark the 35th anniversary of Abbott’s election to parliament.
Diane Abbott is also leading a campaign to empower black women who have suffered mental health issues to speak out about their experience.