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 She did so in February, having apologised publicly and withdrawn her remarks.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

Originally, to suggest that our own direct impressions are a bad guide.

Right so.. You could have saved yourself a load of hassle and said to yourself 'My own direct impression of not experiencing any racism as an Irish person is probably a bad guide to understanding other peoples journey so maybe I'll hould me whist here and refrain from posting nonsense on this thread'.

You have a cheek to tell @whatab to calm down.

Becauae she made things up.

Ok so.

Sweden99 · Today 08:16

In the context of Britain, anti Irish Catholic racism is trivial (speaking as one). It does happen but it is just not a significant part of the culture.

Anyone perceived as Irish was looked down on in the 50s. My dad's dad was Northern Irish Protestant and my dad got called a "Paddy" and a "Mick" etc. In England, people from the two sides stuck together in many cases, as they had the same prejudice.

My mam's mam was Northern Irish Catholic, but brought up on the continent from a young age and didn't get any of it, as she went to a private convent school and didn't have an Irish accent. In any case, at the schools she went to when they moved to Britain had a lot of Irish nuns.

As an aside, can anyone remember a British crime series where Travellers were part of the storyline where the Travellers were not depicted as feckless, violent criminals?

@Sweden99 - seems you need an editor of your posts 🙄

The Labour Party has abandoned longstanding legal action against five former members of staff who have been accused of "conspiring" against Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership.

The most recent documents presented in open court last autumn showed that Labour had spent £1.5m on legal action, and estimated it would spend nearly £900,000 more.

The party's final costs are likely to be higher, as these figures don’t reflect the full cost of the litigation.

But it’s not clear if the party will meet the costs of those it claimed had leaked the controversial report.

And concerns had been raised privately about pursuing it by some Starmer supporters who were no fans of the Corbyn leadership.

The 860 page leaked document ostensibly examined the handling of antisemitism complaints under Mr Corbyn’s leadership.

But it was a lot more than that.

The report's contention was that anti-Corbyn staffers had impeded progress on antisemitism complaints, and it suggested some of them had diverted funds away from certain constituencies in the closely-fought 2017 election which the party needed to win.

But perhaps the most controversial aspect was the inclusion of unredacted emails and WhatsApp messages from Corbyn critics, which laid bare internal tensions and factionalism.

Some of the messages contained derogatory comments about pro-Corbyn MPs and staff.

A subsequent report, external into the leak and the wider culture in the party by Mr Forde found, for example, "the criticisms of Diane Abbott are not simply a harsh response to perceived poor performance – they are expressions of visceral disgust".

The report had been intended as a submission to the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), which was, at the time, in the process of completing what would be a highly-critical report of the party’s response to complaints of antisemitism during the Corbyn leadership.

Following legal advice, the party’s then general secretary Jennie Formby did not submit the document to the EHRC and decided it should not be made public, but it was leaked early in April 2020, within a week of Starmer becoming party leader.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3ggr3pg4ljo