Diane Abbott allowed to face as Labour candidate in election
Diane Abbott is allowed to stand as Labour candidate in the General Election, Keir Starmer has said.
The Labour leader said the veteran MP is “free to go forward as a Labour candidate”. It is expected that the National Executive Committee, Labour’s governing body, will back her.
Mr Starmer has repeatedly refused to say if he wanted veteran MP Ms Abbott to stand at the General Election. But on Friday he told reporters: “The whip has obviously been restored to her now and she is free to go forward as a Labour candidate.”
He praised the Labour veteran as a “trailblazer”, saying: “Diane Abbott was elected in 1987, the first black woman MP. She has carved a path for other people to come into politics and public life.” It came after Angela Rayner fired a warning shot by publicly declaring that she couldn’t see “any reason” why she shouldn’t be allowed to be a candidate.
Ms Abbott was suspended from Labour last year after she suggested Jewish, Irish and Traveller people experience prejudice, but not racism. The party was criticised after an investigation took more than a year. She got the whip back this week but reports then emerged that she would be barred from standing for the election.
The veteran MP, who was the first Black woman elected to Parliament, has been the MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington since 1987. In a major intervention, Ms Rayner told ITV on Thursday: “I don’t see any reason why Diane Abbott can’t stand as a Labour MP going forward. I am saying that as deputy leader of the Labour Party.”
The Deputy Labour leader also hit out at negative briefings against Ms Abbott – the first Black woman to be elected to Parliament in 1987 – in recent days. The Labour deputy leader said: “I don’t think that is how we should conduct ourselves.”
Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar on Friday morning piled pressure on Mr Starmer to allow Ms Abbott to be able to stand for the party. Appearing on BBC Breakfast, Mr Sarwar said: “I would agree with Angela that Diane Abbott is someone who is an historic figure in our party, a trailblazer and someone who has a record of service for our party and our communities.”
But at an event alongside both Ms Rayner and Mr Sarwar in Inverclyde later on Friday, Mr Starmer said that no decision has been made yet when asked whether he agreed with them about Ms Abbott. He said: “No decision has been taken. So that’s the factual position. No decision to bar Diane. Obviously she’s got the whip back and she’s been a trailblazer for many years, but the fact remains no decision has been taken.”
He stressed that Labour has “fantastic candidates across the country, including many Black candidates” after criticism from Martin Forde KC, a prominent Black lawyer, who conducted a probe into anti-Black racism in Labour ranks. Mr Forde told the Guardian that the party was “underestimating” the impact its treatment of Ms Abbott was having on voters, and that the row was leaving some black voters without a “political home”.
