Diane Abbott to be banned from standing for Labour

[IwantToRetire]

... Diane Abbott will not be allowed to stand as a Labour candidate in the forthcoming general election, in a move that is likely to end her 37-year career in parliament.

The MP for Hackney North & Stoke Newington — the first black woman elected to parliament — has been suspended from the party since April last year and the Labour leadership has concluded that there are no circumstances in which she will stand under its banner on July 4.

An announcement of the party’s position could come as early as today. There are discussions among senior aides to Sir Keir Starmer about restoring her to the Labour whip before the election to allow her to leave politics “with dignity”.

Last week the Labour leader promised a resolution to the case before June 4, his party’s deadline for candidate selection, which falls three days before the legal close of nominations.

On Tuesday morning the BBC reported that the party’s internal investigation into a letter by Abbott to The Observer, in which she likened the discrimination suffered by Jewish people, the Irish and Travellers to the bullying of redheads, had concluded six months ago, without any update on her status as an election candidate.
Abbott, 70, is said to have been issued with a formal warning by the party and was told to complete an “antisemitism awareness course”. She did so in February, having apologised publicly and withdrawn her remarks.

Sources close to the left-wing MP told the BBC that Labour leadership was deliberately “dragging out the process in order to block her from being a candidate at the election”. It is understood that the decision to exclude her is final and will not change even in the event she issues a further apology. ...

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/diane-abbott-mp-labour-general-election-2024-fvgnbprdm

(If this is true, irrespective of the rights and wrongs, that Labour should use such underhand tactics is just disgusting. In other words they could have told her this in February. Can only imagine how they will behave once in Government.)

Can also be read at https://archive.ph/orgiJ

I know there have been other threads but MNHQ search is useless and even searching by google didn't bring them up, except this one which I seem to have started. https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5029371-rally-of-support-for-diane-abbot-in-hackney-called-by-hackney-black-women

Is that aside from the almost daily racist comments she makes?

At the 6 o’clock news she hadn’t been reinstated and Reeves and Starmer both said the decision to reinstate was up to the executive committee. Maybe the committee decided to reinstate DA following the report that she was considering standing as an Independent candidate just as Jeremy Corbin is doing.
Who knows… it’s Politics

"Diane Abbott has been readmitted as an MP to the parliamentary Labour party, the BBC understands"

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-69063295

I think that letter is emblematic of a lot of the confusion about the nature of racism, and history of race in general, that is found within identity politics. Because it works from some foolish ideas about race, it ties itself into some weird knots.

I would be happy if these ideas were discredited, but they are actually pretty common among progressives and I can't see that we could disallow anyone who believed them.

That being said, I think it might have been a good idea for DA to announce that she planned to retire. She seems to be struggling with her public role.

What hyperbolic bollocks. What "almost daily" racist comments has she made. Go on give me say 49 from 2024. We're day 148 that's one every 3 days, more or less, just to give you some leeway.

Abbott doesn't make (public) daily racist comments but she has chucked out rubbish like not wanting more blue-eyed blonde nurses in the local hospital and claiming that west Indian mothers will go to the ends of the earth for their kids (implication: other races won't) as a defence to sending her kid to selective school.

Well back to the reason for this thread (there is an existing thread for those who want to discuss her letter).

Just for those who aren't paying attention.

She apologised for the letter, and in a simiar situation a white male Labour MP got re-instated immediately (see tonight's newsnight)

She was "investigated" and told she had to take an online course on anti-semitism, which she did, and so the investigation was then formally closed.

This was at the start of the year.

Since then the Labour Party has not done anything although she was sent an email implying they had been told she wanted to stand down for health reasons.

In other words Labour is at usual, in the same way as they have done to GC women and anti Zionist Jewish people who are members of the Labour party, they are trying to make her resign.

They are giving her the cold shoulder in the same way as they have Rosie Duffield.

How anyone thinks that the Labour party is fit to Govern when all they do is stab each other in the back, lie to the public, and worse their MPs are all cowardly sheep.

So now the ultimate Labour duplicity.

Yes she has been re-instated as an MP, but will not be allowed to stand in the forthcoming election.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/keir-starmer-diane-abbott-general-election-b2552361.html

Tough, she shouldn’t have said those disgusting things then, she’s a politician she knows how the cookie crumbles, I have no sympathy for an anti- semite

Honestly are those of you making comments like this actually looking at what the articles are saying?

So you think due process and agreed procedures are just "how the cookie crumbles".

The sort of yah boo sucks attitude is exactly what the TRAs in the Labour Party say about GC women.

I am no particular fan of DA but am astonished at how blatant Starmer's Labour is at behaving without scruples, and beinding rules to suit the current in groups whims.

They aren't fit to be a Government.

What is amazing is how many continue to be members of the Labour Party even though they are regularly stabbed in the back by Starmer and his henchmen.

“This is outrageous news which confirms that the Starmer leadership is trying to force Britain’s first Black woman MP out of Parliament. For months we have been told by Keir Starmer that the process is independent and it’s nothing to do with him. Today’s revelation confirms this is another brazen lie from Keir Starmer – the investigation was concluded months ago, Diane remains a Labour member and the whip should already have been restored as a result. Starmer’s conduct has already been insulting and demeaning to a woman he rightly called a ‘trailblazer’. The first step to making amends is to restore the whip and let Diane run as the Labour candidate, as local members wish.”

Labour Women Leading said: “This situation is insulting to both Diane Abbott and the membership of Hackney North CLP. The disciplinary procedures should not be used in a factional way.”

Labour’s Former Executive Director of Policy and Research Andrew Fisher said: “The treatment of Diane Abbott – Britain’s first black woman MP – has been nothing short of disgraceful.”

A grassroots petition calling on Keir Starmer to restore the Parliamentary Labour Party whip to Diane Abbott has been signed by over 15,000 people. The petition can be signed here.

https://labourhub.org.uk/2024/05/28/can-diane-abbott-run-for-labour-it-really-is-up-to-starmer/

Although possibly the worst part of it all is that they are styling Starmer in a way they think the majority of the UK will find attractive. What does that say about how Labour sees voters in the UK? Thick as two short planks.

Really not bothered what you think, I’ve read what she said, she’s an anti semite, rascism isn’t a heirarchy as she seems to believe. She can go Rot as far as I’m concerned, due process be damned. Furthermore just be make it very clear I don’t vote labour- before or after she had the whip removed- I’m not in any labour faction

Having searched for her initial letter to the Observer, I do wonder if her letter was edited? What was published seems really short and truncated, without a beginning or an end. I haven't followed this story closely but I'd be interested to know if this question has been addressed ... as someone who used to live in Abbott's constituency, she's not usually the most succinct of speakers/ writers, and this is very short ...

Link to the original letter is here (second down).

My gut feeling is this is a very edited letter which was published (I'm happy to be proved wrong about this) mainly because it doesn't address the points in the article she cites as the cause for writing the letter in the first place. And also the jump from a general point about various minorities to pre-civil rights USA seems odd as a reader, especially given her knowledge of how heavily the Labour party was clamping down on anti-semitism (see the fate of her good friend Corbyn). Feels like there is a big chunk of the letter missing?

It just seems a spectacular misjudgment from a career politician if this is the full text? She's also Labour to the bone, so could see her not coming out and stating if the letter had been abridged until the disciplinary process had been concluded.

Of course, equally, this could also be evidence of her diminishing ability to formulate a point and recognise her own prejudice. But has her original email to the Observer ever been published?

Keir Starmer is a wolf in sheep clothes. You do not do not expect that from a man with integrity. She was a liability but they need to be professional and honest.

We have precious few choices of who can form Government. The current lot are awful. Who do you suggest if not Labour?

Oh! You are one of those principled Labour ideological purists who likes to make chippy remarks from the sidelines.

That worked spectacularly badly when Dear Leader and his former girlfriend were in charge in 2019.

You can’t run a country from opposition. Labour are styling the party to win an election.

‘That worked spectacularly badly when Dear Leader and his former girlfriend were in charge in 2019.’

They are gone but funny that integrity only works when judging Tories, Labour gets a free pass usually. Vote for double standards then.

The desperation of the tories on this thread is highly amusing.

Trump school of politics.

Her ‘defence’ was the letter was a draft or ‘oops I didn’t mean to say that out loud’.
There are very strong rumours that Diane is unwell, if that’s the case the LP should at least demonstrate some duty of care to her, but I don’t think she’s been treated particularly well. Or at best the LP have allowed the opportunity for people to say she hasn’t been treated well. IMO they should have either restored the whip or kicked her out. (Usually caveats that we don’t know what’s gone on behind the scenes)

I have the feeling that Abbott was writing about Britain only, making a comparison between communities in this country alone. Otherwise her letter makes no sense. I think she is still wrong - jokes about Jews and gas chambers and Hitler not finishing the job were common when I was at school in the 70s-80s. The Sex Pistols released a single with Ronnie Biggs entitled "Belsen Was A Gas".

Furthermore, her own close colleague, Jeremy Corbyn, campaigned against the National Front attacks on synagogues in the 1970s. She cannot be unaware of this.

Still, I believe that calling her an anti-Semite is hyperbole because making a stupid comparison is not necessarily evidence of hostility. Given her positive relations with her Jewish constituents I'd say the hostile intent is lacking.

A local rabbi who knows her well:

The letter came as a particular shock, Gluck continued, because of Abbott’s previous commitment to her heavily Charedi constituency.
“Diane has worked passionately for the community,” he said.
“She has helped us with shechita, with immigration issues, with the Shomrim.

https://www.thejc.com/news/politics/diane-abbott-to-meet-leading-hackney-rabbi-to-heal-rifts-after-observer-letter-h5v9wfde

Abbott has a blind spot that has resulted in some bone-headed statements down the years. She's academically bright but that doesn't guarantee good sense in all respects.

okay, so you don’t vote Labour because they’re insufficiently ideologically pure for you.

What’s the alternative that can actually form government?

BBC Today programme just announced that "someone" at the BBC has spoken to DA and she apparently said the whip has been restored but she has been barred from standing for Labour at the election.

From 7.30am onwards:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-69071603

She's an anti-semite and needs to be got rid.

On the 8am news bulletin it was said Labour's National Executive(?) are still to make a decision but DA's understanding is that she will be barred from standing.

So still not a definitive official announcement.

Lol. So many want to forget, it aint fashionable anti-racism.