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 She did so in February, having apologised publicly and withdrawn her remarks.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

You have that the wrong way round. Anti-Semitism is everywhere tolerated and covertly agreed with. Racism against black people is much more condemned - and carries with it the trope that black people cannot be racist (which is a racist comment). Abbott herself is distinctly racist against white people.

Hard disagree.

Well Starmer has fallen at the first hurdle. Weak, weak, weak. He promised that the Labour of old, with all their far left ideals, would be a thing of the past in his government, but he caved to pressure in less than 24 hours. I’m sure if he gets in on 4th July, Raynor and Abbott will be running circles round him. The far left have waited for years for this opportunity, and they will certainly make their voices heard.

Raynor and Abbott will be running circles round him.

Abbott? Have you missed a big chunk of news today?

I think it's important to differentiate between racist people and racist ideologies. They don't always go together.

Some of this kind of talk about racism not being possible for white people comes from a definitional issue - what is race? Not all kinds of prejudice or oppression are based on race, we have sexism, classism, etc. If race is defined very roughly a person might argue that oppression of, say, Irish people was some kind of thing, but not definitionally racism.

At one time of course many Europeans considered Europeans from other areas to be a different "race" but for people like Abbott,awareness about that seems completely out of the picture. I suspect because they have a very concrete idea of what race is, and don't recognize that definitionally it's a moving target.

As far as critical theory, I agree it's completely racist, it is essentially a kind of old fashioned, 19th century, scientific racism. But many of the people who believe it are truly unaware of it - they have been taught that it is the only way to be non-racist, and they are credulous enough to believe it.

I don't think DA has any personal issue with Jewish, or red-haired, people. But she has been indoctrinated with an incoherent belief system on this issue.
What I find really interesting is that in a way, DA is being consistent with what that ideology believes, and what the LP believes. But she is saying the quiet part out loud.

Starmer has not ruled out her returning as MP. He should have shut it down straight away and made the decision to refuse her being allowed to stand. There’s absolutely no doubt whatsoever that he will let her stand as an MP at the GE. It’s sickening.

@Livelovebehappy I save my feelings of being sickened for things that have actually happened, rather than things I'm imagining. And goodness knows there are enough of those - Sunak provides plenty.

DA does not look at all well. Her hands are shaking. She should have retired. I don't know why this has blown up. It looks like she wanted to retire and it had been negotiated, then someone told the papers wrongly that she was being deselected and its caused her to kick off. I wonder who leaked that information to the Times?

That's what I heard too. She was supposed to be thanked for her long service and sent off on her retirement. Poor woman really doesn't look well.

Diane Abbott is after retirement, that retirement home called the House of Lords.

@TempestTost
But she has been indoctrinated with an incoherent belief system on this issue.

Which dovetails quite seamlessly with the belief system that led her, 2 weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine, to claim "that Russia is the aggressor should be taken very sceptically". Indoctrinated at the school of Seamus Milne.

I have no time for her and think she has blind spot about antisemitism, but she should be allowed to stand. Although I don't think she should. She's clearly unwell and her judgement demonstrably questionable.

It would be a pretty underhand thing to do when Labour are on the brink of government, but the Corbynite Left really do hate Starmer in a quite obsessive way. More than they seem to dislike the Tories. I wonder whether someone from Momentum has tried to cause trouble?

To be honest she has been an MP for 35 years. The first Black woman MP. She deserves it more than the shower of children/ lovers/ cronies of Boris Johnson and criminals who currently reside there.

Many Jewish people categorise themselves as a race, and indeed they are right you can do DNA tests to see if you are. It is very dangerous to downplay how they have been treated to the word “ prejudiced” just because their skin colour is white. The Holocaust comes to mind!!! Same for Roma Gypsies. And even if you still think I’m wrong, who on earth does it benefit to compare who gets more hate, all you do is belittle the victims experience and their voice. People can be racist to white people

Yes, I think that's a fair assessment. I don't think she is a bad person, but her judgement on some of these things seems poor. But, I find that about an adult lot of the left now, the lens they are using to make judgements is just so wonky. Unlike some on FWR, I don't see it as confined to gender ideology. It's something much bigger.

If everyone who believes what I think is stupid shit wasn't allowed to run there would be far fewer candidates! And I'm sure there are others who might think that I believe stupid shit, so...

I also think she's seemed not that well in herself in recent years. I don't understand what has possessed her to say she'll run again, it seems like this is an instance where a friend of family ought to have had a frank but kind conversation with her.

Would that normally be done though for someone who was not seen as being able for health reasons? That might be the sticking point, if she thinks she is up to it, and others think she is too unwell.

Wonky is exactly it. They think it's the 'progressive' line, but it's anything but.

I know there are some posts querying whether the left are able to influence the leadership or somehow able to take over control and as a member (unhappily one right now) I can say there is no way that can happen at this point. And the situation with Abbott is just one sign of that as they feel able to treat her any way they want. Admittedly I am from the left of the party and could be considered biased so take anything I say on that basis.

Firstly the process for choosing candidates is utterly in control of the leadership - numerous constituencies will have had people imposed on them with no debate and no vote. Its happened in my area and constituencies around us. The rules around who can stand as leader, debates around policy, even what you are allowed to discuss and how disciplinary processes work are weighted against whoever the leadership wants to exclude from decision making. Membership has dropped massively.

Some people may think that is good if you weren't happy with the previous policy direction, some may think it is bad. But it does show a lack of democracy within the party that impacts on cases like DA where they can act with impunity and it means that where there are policies many disagree with, such as those around women's rights, the avenues to seek change get cut off plus it discourages anyone from speaking out.

I hate Starmer, to be quite fair, he's no pinker than Blair. Not sure I am Corbynite left. I am a Bennite socialist. Re-nationalisation of utilities and railways, repeal anti-TU legislation, and currently re-nationalise the Royal Mail (the Czech gent's guarantees on universal service obligation etc are only short term), extend public service obligation to all carriers.

I do understand what you are saying, but what did for Corbyn for better or worse was that the PLP did not want him as a leader, and many refused to be part of his shadow cabinet. Membership went up to 500,000 people, but many of those were not that interested in Labour and were just Corbyn fanboys/girls who joined on the £3 entry fee weren't even interested enough to renew their membership the following year. Even if they were all dedicated to Labour politics, party members are not the electorate, as we've seen from.the disaster of the 2019 election for Labour, and the absolute morons Conservative party members have imposed on us. It's fine if you want to be an ideological pressure group but if you want to implement change then you need to get elected and have a cabinet that will work together to implement those policies and have enough backbenchers to support you. That's the way our system works.

A lot of people on here has said that Diane Abbott is Ill or seems Ill. What have people heard is actually wrong? I haven’t heard this before.

She isn't ill.

This thread seems to have attracted posters who think by sitting at their key board they can diagnose people who are ill, ageing badly, dysfunctional and every other irrelevant thing they can think of based on what I can only assume is prejudice.

The astonishing arrogance of some who jump on threads like this to spew their personal prejudices is astonishing.

Yes Diane's hands were shaking, she has spent all day being stonewalled by Labour Central who dont have the guts to tell her what they are really doing.

This has been her life for decades and some mediocre white man who has been chosen to appeal to all the backwoods little englanders is too inflated in his own ego that he has corrupted the labour party procedures to get his way.

And as if to confirm that Starmer has a problem with intelligent and loyal Labour MPs who happen to be Black and female and have opinions of their own, Newsnight has just interviewed a woman who was out canvassing today on the basis that she is the Labour candidate and the media has told her she has been dumped. She was crying. No doubt the posters on this thread who feel they are able to diagnose other women will come up with some spurious analysis about how this shows she isn't mentally stable. https://x.com/BBCNewsnight/status/1795955536539566236?t=RwhX1CSzf4eKTwxwWoHFjw&s=1

I think there have been new lows on this thread.

And perhaps worst of all are all those posturising about anti semitism as though they owned this. But dont seem to realise their irrational approach is actually making people feel this is like the story of the boy who cried wolf too often. out in the real world, as part of a news report about Diane Abbot, they interviewed a Rabbi who is one of her constituents. He wasn't raving and ranting about anti semitism, but spoke in a well reasoned and sympathetic way about what has happened in the past year.

But then no doubt the posters on here who are so busy pontificating about anti semitism will feel able to track down this deluded man and start lecturing him about anti semitism.

There does seem to be a very curious standard that Diane Abbott is held to, that others simply aren't.

I think her letter was antisemitic (as it was found to be), and the investigation was justified. I also believe that a lifetime of experiencing racism based on the colour of her skin could well skew her definition of racism, and lead her to diminish the racism that jewish people, roma or travellers face because they can "pass as white" in day to day life (i don't agree that this is the case, because it demonstrably isn't!)
But when we look at the job she has done for her constituency, that she is re-elected time and time again it is simply outrageous to suggest that this decision is reasonable. She should be allowed to stand unless she believed she's unable, and nothing she has said has given me the impression that she wants to step down.

That is an interesting post, as it opens to where I have a blind spot.
Diane Abbott's original letter compares the racism faced by communities. Notably, she also suggests that racism again black people has a certainty not faced by Muslims, travellers nor Jews. That what offended people was not the anti-Muslim nor anti-traveller but the anti-semitic part.
I grew up in a town with very few Jewish people, so was rather oblivious. When I first met Jewish people, they were upper middle class so their definition of anti-semitism still presumed a social status that I could not aspire to.
I write this as an apology as I am sure that it must seem strange at best that I could not witness serious anti-semitism in the UK. Even when I was in a relationship with a Jewish person, they were American and were not aware of anti-semitism in the UK.
I have heard anti-semitism from Muslims on occasion (though far rarer than to be common). That said, I use the analogy that a white American, Australian and Brit will all see more anti-black racism in each others country than their own.
When I am told that the racism Jewish people face in the UK is far worse that Muslims, travellers, black people or even that faced by Northern Ireland Catholics, I find it strange that it is such a blind spot.

@Littlepinkstarsbyradish, As a good looking, white American, anglo-saxon Protestant, Regan never considered discrimination important. Until it was against B-list actors, at which point it was outrageous. Once it was a against a group he was not in, it was fine again.
I think Diane Abbott is similar, except as a black, working class woman, she has faced lots of discrimination and ends up on the left rather than the right.