Diane Abbott says she was the ‘token black person’ at the Home Office because it is ‘fundamentally racist’

SHADOW Home Secretary Diane Abbott once branded the Home Office a “fundamentally racist organisation”, The Sun can reveal.

Asked what qualified her to take over the department in 10 days' time, the wannabe Home Secretary pointed to the fact she had worked there for three years as a graduate trainee.

But previously she said of her time in Whitehall: “I thought it could be transformed from within. I was wrong. I was just one token black person in a fundamentally racist institution.”

Asked why voters should back Labour, Mrs Abbott told the BBC’s Andrew Marr: “I think there is something to be said for a Home Secretary who has actually worked in the Home Office, I worked there for three years”.

But she was left red-faced after her previous comments emerged.

In an interview with The Times when she was selected as the Labour candidate for Hackney in 1985, Mrs Abbott said: “I am an extremist” and vowed to shake up Westminster.

It is understood she was a trainee in the prisons section of the Home Office between 1975 and 1978 but became disillusioned and went to work for a civil liberties campaign group before becoming an MP.

Asked yesterday if she would be prepared to sign orders approving the surveillance of suspected terrorists, Mrs Abbott said: “Remember, I was a Home Office civil servant, I know how these things work.

“So if the files were put in front of me, evidence put in front of me, of course I’ll sign orders for surveillance, that’s very much part of the job.”

Cabinet Minister Priti Patel blasted: “Diane Abbott and Jeremy Corbyn’s CVs show they have a long history of supporting Britain’s opponents.”

She added: “It’s quite clear that if they are put in charge of the EU negotiations and our security, they won’t go out to bat for Britain.”