Left-wing MP Diane Abbott has been accused of politicizing a tragedy in the Mediterranean that saw 41 migrants die in a shipwreck off the Italian island of Lampedusa, claiming they have “fucked off to the bottom of the sea.”
The remark by the former shadow home secretary under Jeremy Corbyn’s far-left leadership was in response to comments made by Lee Anderson, the governing Conservative party’s deputy chairman, who told illegal migrants arriving in Britain on Tuesday that if they didn’t like the accommodation they were provided with they should “fuck off back to France”.
In a bizarre tweet on Wednesday, Abbott posted a link to a BBC article reporting on the shipwreck off the Italian coast with the caption: “These migrants have indeed fucked off. To the bottom of the sea.”
The tweet was swiftly deleted after a backlash from social media users accusing her of politicizing the tragedy.
Others reminded the lawmaker that the migrants involved in the tragedy were not in the U.K., had no link whatsoever with the U.K., and the event had no relevance to the remarks made by Lee Anderson, who referred specifically to illegal migrants complaining about taxpayer-funded accommodation in Britain.
Abbott had previously chastised the Conservative MP for his language in relation to new arrivals in Britain, and claimed he had told asylum seekers to “fuck off back to France,” conflating genuine refugees with illegal immigrants, something Anderson clarified in an exchange on the social media platform X, previously known as Twitter.
Abbott has a long history of PR disasters. Last November, she was heavily criticized for suggesting the rape of a teenage boy at a hotel accommodating asylum seekers in northeast London last month “is what happens when you demonize migrants.”
She also previously came under fire in April for suggesting that Jewish people cannot suffer racism in the same way as Black people, but that antisemitism is more similar to the kind of discrimination someone would experience if they have ginger hair. The remarks saw her have the Labour whip suspended.
As far as public relations nightmares go, Abbott may have hit the jackpot a month before the 2017 general election in Britain, when she told a radio station that Labour’s policy to recruit 10,000 more police officers over a four-year period would cost just £300,000 — the equivalent of £30 per police officer.
At the time, Abbott was shadow home secretary and vying to enter the Home Office where her remit would have included law enforcement across England and Wales.