Another day, another confusing twist in Labour’s stance on Diane Abbott. The ongoing saga has created significant disquiet over the last 48 hours, with Labour’s confusing messaging on the whole thing proving a rather effective distraction from Sir Keir Starmer’s party policies. It’s hardly the best way to kick off your election campaign…
First we heard that Labour would bar the long-standing MP from representing the party at the next election. Then, just hours after the story broke, Abbott was reinstated with the Labour whip, which some speculated was to allow her to retire with dignity. Then Starmer himself denied that Abbott had been ‘banned’ from standing at around the same time that the veteran MP addressed supporters on the steps of Hackney town hall, telling them she would not be ‘intimidated’ and plans to stay on as a Member of Parliament for ‘as long as possible’. And now Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner has waded into the debate.
Talking to journalists today, Rayner has thrown another spanner in the works, telling ITV:
I don’t see any reason why Diane Abbott can’t stand as a Labour MP going forward… I am saying that as the deputy leader of the Labour party.
Speaking to Sky, Rayner added that she doesn’t see why the veteran Corbynite, who she described as a ‘trailblazer’, ‘can’t be a Labour MP if that’s what she wants to do’. The deputy Labour leader also admitted to the Guardian that her former colleague has not been treated ‘fairly or appropriately’ by some in the Labour party. Oo er.
The Hackney North & Stoke Newington MP was the first black woman elected to parliament, serving continually since 1987 and winning a majority of over 33,000 in 2019. She was suspended last year for a letter she wrote, in which she compared the discrimination suffered by Jewish people and the Traveller community to the taunting of redheads. BBC Newsnight revealed this week that the party’s investigation into the politician had wrapped up six months ago — yet Abbott was not informed of her candidate status until Tuesday evening.
The Hackney MP is one of a number of Corbynite politicians who believe Starmer’s apparatchiks are not letting them stand for Labour in the upcoming election. Lloyd Russell-Moyle announced on Wednesday that he has been blocked from standing again in Brighton Kemptown while Faiza Shaheen posted on Twitter that she has been removed as the Labour candidate for Chingford and Woodford Green. Abbott has blasted the developments as a ‘cull of left-wingers’, but Rayner today denied there is an ongoing ‘purge‘:
We put a robust system in place around vetting and dealing with serious allegations that are made in the party. We had to do that because when me and Keir took over the party was failing.
It’s all turning into a rather large mess for Sir Keir and his Starmtroopers who Mr S can imagine would rather policy issues were taking centre stage than, um, party infighting. One thing’s for sure: Abbott won’t go away without a fight…
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