Trailblazing MP Diane Abbott ‘free to stand’ in election

LONDON:

Trailblazing MP Diane Abbott is “free to stand” in the upcoming elections after hundreds of supporters took a stand for her at Hackney Town Hall last week, piling on the pressure on Labour Leader Sir Keir Starmer to change his stance on Britain’s first black female member of parliament (MP).

Diane Abbott, MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, had been barred from the Labour Party for over a year (since April 2023) after comments she made in a letter to The Observer that members of the Irish, Jewish and Traveller community had not been subject to experiencing racism all their lives as black people had been.

The long-serving MP immediately apologised for the comment but was consequently barred by the Labour Party’s National Executive Council.

Following on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s surprise announcement on May 22 of a general election date of July 4, and with mounting pressure from the community on Starmer, the ban was lifted and the Whip restored to Abbott by reinstating her into the Labour Party.

Questioned on this, Starmer had told reporters that the process was still ongoing.

But it was revealed on Tuesday, May 28 that the process had concluded in December, with Abbott having also been told to complete an online anti-Semitism training course in February.

Last week, Abbott posted on her X (formerly Twitter) account that while she was delighted to have the Labour Whip restored and to be a member of the PLP (Parliamentary Labour Party), she was dismayed at reports suggesting that she had been barred as a candidate in the forthcoming general elections, which prompted hundreds of members of the community to take a stand for her the next day at the Hackney Town Hall.

She told her constituent supporters: “I will not be intimidated… by any means necessary I will continue to stand as your MP.”

SHORT-TERM VICTORY

Starmer’s response to questions on whether Abbott had been barred from running as a candidate for Labour, was at best evasive and lacking transparency. He told reporters that no decision had been taken to bar Abbott from running.

But with the narrative of Abbott’s near 40-year career as a Labour MP looking as though it would be coming to an end, overshadowing the Labour campaign trail in the run up to the general election, and questions from PM Sunak on the matter, Starmer finally announced that Abbott “would be free” to run as a Labour candidate in the upcoming general elections.

Among those responding to the about-turn is veteran political campaigner Marc Wadsworth, who led the Black Sections within the Labour Party in the 1980s. He said:

“This is a huge victory for grassroots campaigning and community pressure. It’s a big victory for the black community flexing its political muscle in a way that Left-bashing Labour strongman Keir Starmer couldn’t overcome.

“We have demonstrated without fear the limit of our tolerance of Labour taking the black vote for granted. However, the fight for equality and fairness is far from over. Although the restoration of Diane as a Labour candidate is a significant short-term victory, and we need such wins for the sake of morale, we must not forget others, particularly black women like Kate Osamor and Faiza Shaheen, both dumped as parliamentary candidates. The struggle against racism inside Labour and outside of it continues.”

Abbott is no stranger to racial abuse herself, after research conducted in 2017 by Amnesty International revealed that she was the most abused female MP, with 45 per cent of abusive tweets directed at her.

Earlier this year (March 2024), The Guardian revealed alarming comments made by Conservative Party donor Frank Hester in 2019, who had said at the time that seeing Abbott on TV made “you want to hate all black women”, and that the long-serving MP “should be shot”. His comments were widely condemned across all political parties.