Sadiq Khan has said that Labour’s governing body ‘hasn’t decided what’s going to happen’ to Diane Abbott going forward. According to the BBC, the Hackney North and Stoke Newington MP said earlier this morning (Wednesday, May 29): “Although the whip has been restored, I am banned for standing as a Labour candidate.”
Separately, on X, she said that she was “dismayed” that reports overnight suggested she was being barred as a candidate. Labour withdrew the whip from the UK’s first black female MP after she suggested Jewish, Irish and Traveller people did not experience racism ‘all their lives’.
Now, Labour’s Mayor of London has told MyLondon that he understands that the NEC ‘haven’t decided what’s going to happen in relation to her going forward’. Mr Khan added that if Ms Abbott doesn’t stand on July 4, she ‘deserves a fantastic send off’.
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He than raised the possibility of the 70-year-old MP going into the House of Lords, calling her a ‘trailblazer’ and saying that she had been a ‘mentor’ to him when he was in the House of Commons.
Asked about reports that the party’s investigation into her concluded in December, the mayor added: “I simply do not know.” The mayor maintained, ‘all I know is what I’ve seen in the media’.
When asked where he had heard about the NEC not yet making a decision about Ms Abbott’s future, he said: “I read great papers like yours. Others as well.”
Since Mr Khan spoke to MyLondon, the Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer, has told media that ‘no decision has been made’ regarding whether Ms Abbott will be allowed to stand as a candidate for the Party.
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