The drama in Westminster never seems to end – and tonight is certainly no exception to that rule. In one of the biggest developments of the week, it transpires that Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour party will not allow veteran MP Diane Abbott to represent the party at the upcoming general election. However, Abbott has reportedly been given the Labour whip back as a middle way.
The Hackney North & Stoke Newington MP was the first black woman elected to parliament, serving continually since 1987 and achieving a majority of over 33,000 in 2019 – but Labour’s decision this evening is likely to bring her 37-year political career to end.
The BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire reported this morning that the internal party investigation into Abbott had wrapped up a whole, er, six months ago. Despite this being the case, however, the Hackney North MP – who was suspended in April 2023 for writing a letter that compared the discrimination suffered by Jewish people and the Traveller community to the taunting of redheads – was not told of what the outcome meant for her candidate status. In the meantime, Abbott received a formal warning and completed an ‘antisemitism awareness course’ in February after publicly apologising for her comments.
The move will likely ignite tensions in Starmer’s Labour party – which has little over a month to go before it finds out how the electorate really feel about it. Abbott’s allies certainly haven’t been shy about their anger about the MP’s treatment in the past, while left-wing Corbynite group Momentum has said today that the delay in resolving her candidate status ‘confirms that the Starmer leadership is trying to force Britain’s first black woman MP out of parliament’. Oh dear. And once Starmer’s army makes the official announcement, there will be more where that came from. Sir Keir shouldn’t expect to see the last of this issue quite yet…
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