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 She did so in February, having apologised publicly and withdrawn her remarks.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

What are "tories"?

I think it's time for her to go, her behaviour has been a bit erratic for some time.

What she wrote, as quoted above, seems more naive and foolish to me, rather than having ill-intent behind it although I understand the upset she caused. She cites what Tomiwa Owolade says about the UK, but then she makes points about the US & South Africa and racism. As Owolade's book title says 'this is not America'.

And maybe there were no white people chained to the trans Atlantic slave ships, but it's estimated that one million white Europeans were taken in slavery, by Arabs in the main.

Yeah, @CwmYoy, I don't think Tories = Donald Trump.

Fucking outrageous of that right wing git Starmer to ban her.

She isn't. You know well she isn't. It's just an excuse to keep dragging the party so far right that they are effectively Tories.

Not to mention the British atrocities in Ireland, from the ethnic cleansing, deliberate starvation, and massacres of the Munster and Ulster Plantations, to the murderous reprisals in 1798, to the Great 'Famine' [in which food was being exported to the UK] which saw at least a million people die and two million emigrate, to name a few.

Most Irish people have been hesitant to call these 'genocides', because the legal definition requires intent to destroy a people, and in the case of the most destructive, the blight which caused the potato crop to fail repeatedly was not a deliberate act by the British.

The consequent actions/inactions, were very deliberate, and the death of a million or so 'subhuman' Irish was actually welcomed in some circles as a beneficial side-effect of the crop failure. The laissez-faire attitude of Sir Charles Trevelyan to the unspeakable horror of the famine is notorious - and in stark contrast to the smaller potato blight outbreak in Scotland, where he declared that no expense should be spared to save lives, so the disregard for human life was specifically for Irish human life.

However, since the killing in the course of a war of approx 35,000 people out of a population of approx 5m, and a worldwide population of 14m is now widely defined as a 'genocide', perhaps it's time for a reappraisal of British atrocities in Ireland, and the continuing consequences for the Irish nation and people.

I wonder has Diane Abbott ever wondered why having red hair is perceived as negative?

This is a woman who has been consistently racist. She likened anti-Semitism to being discriminated against because you have red hair (Whoopi Goldberg said something similar i.e. that the Holocaust was not racist because everyone involved was white). Abbott also said Irish and Traveller people do not suffer from discrimination as black people do. All this garbage comes from Critical Race Theory, the victim/oppressor narrative and the assumption a) that the only slave trade that EVER existed was the Atlantic trade, b) Europeans, esp. British, invented slavery and c) only black people suffer from racism and black people cannot be racist. This same narrative is fuelling the pro-Hamas marches across the Western world, championing rapists, murderers, misogynists and illegal soldiers (they wear no uniform and mix with the general population) who carried out an attack on Jewish people not seen since WWII as the oppressed (so good guys), and Israel as the oppressor (because colonials etc).
True, the Labour Party has acted despicably in not telling Abbott she could not stand as a Labour candidate at the next election, but they probably wanted to avoid the shit-storm that has now resulted - this was stupid of them btw, better earlier, before an election called, now it's going to overshadow their election campaign. They have treated Abbott badly and it fits well with their TWAW narrative and their general indifference to women. They cannot be trusted on those issues. But the Conservatives have made a complete mess of the NHS (on purpose, I think), so what is one to do?

Not the Irish Famine again. Pitt sent relief to Ireland, despite similar hardship happening in the North of England (and across Europe as the blight was general) but when he went out of office and the Whigs replaced the Tories, they believed that famine should not be relieved by giving aid in the form of grain etc but should be solved by the market (sound familiar?) as they were strong supporters of laissez-faire economics (leave it alone to sort itself). It was Irish landowners who exported food from Ireland during the famine (i.e. not the British government - many people in England, including Queen Victoria, sent aid to Ireland) and, as you say, the deaths were not genocide as genocide must be intended, and it wasn't, the deaths were a result of government beliefs about how the world works (Adam Smith's 'invisible hand') and that if there is a demand it will be supplied so government should not intervene (sound familiar? pure Thatcherism). As to other massacres. no-one remembers the murder of Protestants - they are the wrong sort of Irish, I suppose. (My father was Irish by descent (not nationality) and my grandparents, Catholic, too. I have an Irish surname - I know about discrimination against the Irish - and when a black woman behaved towards me in a racist manner I recognised her for what she was immediately.)
Diane Abbott probably knows little of the history of the British Isles and so won't recognise the connection between red hair and Danes - who slaved all round Europe. As to red hair and the Irish, it is the result of the Irish slaving all round Europe and esp. Britain - largest slave market in Europe was Dublin - and main reason for Normans invading (Normans anti-slavery).

What are "tories"?

Unworthy lowlifes not worth a capital letter.

I beg to disagree as do thousands of others.

I think she might have a drink problem; the signs are there, to my (ex addict and alcoholic's) eyes.

She's a liability to the party and the fact that she was the first Black female MP should not afford her any partiuclar protection. Labour need to be on the front foot throughout this campaign and cannot let anything weaken it.

So presumably you also think that the UK Labour Party are akin to the Communist Party of Cuba.

Don't be silly. Or maybe you can't help it. Do try, though.

It has just been announced by Keir that she hasn't been banned.

I think I read that Abbot has Type 2 diabetes? If she is struggling to control blood sugar it may explain the erratic behaviour.

I think she has a poor grasp of history and cultural sensitivities, and is too prone to howlers to hold a senior position, but the Labour party haven't dealt with this well.

In her latter years she has become a walking gaff machine. For someone who has been in politics as long as she has she demonstrates and extraordinary lack of judgement at times. She is clearly a good constituent MP and would probably win her seat as an independent but she would cost Labour votes in a GE campaign.

Grammarnut Not the Irish Famine again.
Yes the Irish Famine again, sorry if our history and its ongoing consequences are a nuisance.

It was Irish landowners who exported food from Ireland during the famine (i.e. not the British government.
Wow, blaming the Irish for the Famine is quite a stretch!
Do you think that the land of Ireland was owned by Irish landowners in the 19th century? Seriously? Ireland was 'owned' and controlled by the British until the 20th century. The land had been taken from the Irish and given to English and Scottish planters - cf the plantations of Munster and Ulster in the 16th and 17th centuries. By the 19th century, most of the country was owned by a small number of landowners, definitely NOT the native Irish, who had to pay often-exorbitant rents to farm their land, and who were decimated by what may or may not have been a genocide, depending on whether or not one accepts the current definition.
These are all historical facts, Irish History 101.

- largest slave market in Europe was Dublin
True; but Dublin was a Viking and the slave market was a Viking operation, not an Irish one.
the Irish were slaving all around Europe ? ?

Diane Abbott probably knows little of the history of the British Isles
Perhaps; lack of knowledge about the history of Ireland is not uncommon.

About twenty years ago, I was in a discussion about anti-semitism. I was not really aware of it and was hearing what a serious problem it was. What surprised me was the examples they cited, largely employment discrimination in banks, was seen as more serious that either the racism faced by Muslims in Britain or by what the working class Catholic community had faced in Derry or Belfast.
In terms of absolutes, what Diane Abbott wrote is absolutely reasonable. But we have an understanding that anti-semitism is far more serious.

I know all you have just educated me with. Nevertheless, the landowners in Ireland were selling grain (not the British government) and they defined themselves as Irish, indeed identified as such, and were considered such by everyone else in the British Isles. They treated the ordinary Irish badly for the most part. The Scottish Protestants were planted in Ulster in the 16th and 17th centuries but were originally of Irish descent, as it happens, since the Irish invaded Dariada in Scotland from the north of Ireland, in the eighth century. Brian Boru called himself King of Scots, by which he meant the Irish. Dublin was the Vikings, true, but it was the Irish who raided the coasts of Wales, the South West and the coasts of e.g. Lancashire. And the Normans were Vikings, too, for that matter, not English. Please do not tell me I know nothing of the history of my grandparents' homeland.

What a depressing thread and what a mess modern theories have made in the English speaking world. The idea that racism only applies to different skin colour, where it had previously included nationality and thus had a much wider meaning has caused a lot of anger and misunderstanding.

But the thread was really about how the Labour Party has treated Diane Abbot and it does seem shameful. Whatever process was being fallowed, it should have been clear and should have been concluded within a pre-set limited timescale.

As to who else is there? There is no real alternative, I don’t think. The Conservative Party is equally chaotic. My only hope is that the Labour Party, who probably will be elected, are not as awful as seems likely. I won’t be voting for them, and indeed unless more candidates are put up in my ward, I may, for the first time, spoil my ballot paper.

I can't keep up with this tbh. On the 6 o'clock news yesterday she wasn't being reinstated and on the 10 she was. But today they're saying... she's been reinstated into the party but they're not letting her run as an MP? So does that mean... she needs to resign from the party after just getting back in to run as an independent or... just step down? Do we know who labour is putting up for the seat then?

Sorry if this has been answered, I have read the full thread and listened to the news but I'm no clearer!

(I disagree with Diane Abbott on many things but she's undeniably a good constituency MP and would win as an independent)

To have an investigation into a published letter from April 2023 that takes until December to be completed, then a failure to confirm the outcome, then the leader himself claims it isn't complete when it is and even now there is no definite confirmation of what has been decided absolutely stinks. Its not a surprise as it has all the feel of trying to ensure she doesn't get to stand or is so ground down by it she herself decides not to. But its an awful way to treat someone who has dedicated herself to working for the party. And that is whether people like her or agree with her or not.

The real kicker is when there was all that publicity about the Tory donor making awful remarks about her the Labour Party used that as an excuse to send out messages to members asking for donations. The sheer nerve of doing that when they were treating Diane the way they have takes my breath away and is why so many members are even now resigning or standing down from roles.

On top of, you know, the leadership being unable to even define a woman which had already led to many stepping back.

Seriously, do her misjudged words really make her an anti-Semite?

Notions of a hierarchy of racism may be distasteful but as I’ve questioned upthread were her remarks made in the context of the blatant racism she has endured from her own party colleagues?

And were these racist remarks and attitudes toward her ever investigated? Or is that the type of racism that labour is not bothered to investigate?

They may be 'misjudged' words - but she's a senior politician. She's also someone who knows what racism and prejudice is. To have written a letter like this (and then claim it was a mistake because it was a draft ) is much more serious than just a misjudgement.