The Diane Abbott racism row reveals how principles compete with money

Get Nadine White's Race Report newsletter for a fresh perspective on the week's news Get our free newsletter from The Independent's Race Correspondent Get our free newsletter from The Independent's Race Correspondent SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. So why is the Tory party defending and welcoming money from someone who reportedly said: “You see Diane Abbott on the TV, and you’re just like I hate, you just want to hate all Black women because she’s there, and I don’t hate all Black women at all, but I think she should be shot”? I think I know why: remember when Lee Anderson was suspended from the Tory Party for Islamophobic comments and defended his views by saying they weren’t offensive to “some of my donors”? After all, in June 2022, Nadine Dorries begged Tory MPs not to axe Boris Johnson as prime minister by saying: “The Conservative Party donors have said they aren’t going to support the party if the prime minister is removed… £80m those donors have donated.” The majority of Tory MPs then voted for Johnson to stay on as PM. Johnson once said in a TV interview: “I’ve got a brilliant new strategy, which is to make so many gaffes, so nobody knows which one to concentrate on.” He then did things like liken Muslim women who wear the burka to letterboxes, which led to a 375 per cent increase in Islamophobic hate crime.