Diane Abbott has claimed that Labour has barred her from standing for the party at the General Election. The Hackney North and Stoke Newington MP made the claim to the BBC this morning.
It comes after she was reportedly given back the Labour whip earlier on Tuesday. Pressure on Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer intensified after reports that an investigation into her racism comments was completed five months ago, in December, 2023.
Labour withdrew the whip from the UK’s first black female MP in April 2023, after she suggested Jewish, Irish and Traveller people experienced prejudice, but not racism.
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BBC Newsnight reported that Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC) had written to Ms Abbott in December 2023 to say it had concluded an inquiry into her comments.
It is believed that crowds gathered outside the Labour Party HQ last night (May 29) in protest of the Hackney North MP ‘being blocked’ from standing for the party at the forthcoming general election.
MyLondon approached London Labour for comment.
Shadow Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, told BBC Breakfast: “I say this with respect for everything that Diane Abbott has achieved in politics, I genuinely think your viewers will be more interested in the fate of eight million people who are stuck on NHS waiting lists under the Conservatives and the risk of that rising even further to ten million if Rishi Sunak is given the keys to Number 10 again.”
Mr Streeting added that he ‘doesn’t know the circumstances’ of the party’s decision regarding Ms Abbott or ‘the basis upon which it is taken’ as it is not his to make.
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