DIANE Abbott has had the Labour whip restored less than one day after Keir Starmer’s claims that an internal party probe into her was still “ongoing” were revealed to be untrue.
However, she is still to be banned from standing for the party at the next General Election, according to reports.
The PA news agency said that Abbott was given the Labour whip back following an internal investigation into comments she made suggesting that white minorities do not experience “racism” in the same way as others.
As Starmer used comments aimed at Abbott from Tory donor Frank Hester to attack his Conservative opponents in March, he also claimed she could not be given back the Labour whip because that internal probe into her was still ongoing.
However, the BBC reported on Monday night that the investigation had actually concluded in December, 2023.
Abbott was reported to have completed an online antisemitism course in February, as she had been instructed, and has been waiting for the Labour whip to be restored ever since.
On Tuesday, Starmer again refused to say whether Abbott, Britain’s first black woman MP, would be able to stand for the party in the General Election.
Asked about the investigation finishing in December, the Labour leader told broadcasters: “The process overall is obviously a little longer than the fact-finding exercise.
“But in the end, this is a matter that will have to be resolved by the National Executive Committee and they’ll do that in due course.”
Starmer has previously said he could not get involved in the case, which would be resolved by June 4, when Labour’s final list of candidates is decided.
The Times reported that Labour officials minds are actually already made up and Abbott will not be allowed to stand under the party banner.
The revelations that the probe actually concluded in December led left-wing Labour members with the group Momentum to accuse Starmer of having told a “brazen lie”.
Diane Abbott’s letter to The Observer, for which she lost the Labour whip, said: “Tomiwa Owolade claims that Irish, Jewish and Traveller people all suffer from 'racism' ('Racism in Britain is not a black and white issue. It’s far more complicated', Comment). They undoubtedly experience prejudice. This is similar to racism and the two words are often used as if they are interchangeable.
“It is true that many types of white people with points of difference, such as redheads, can experience this prejudice. But they are not all their lives subject to racism. In pre-civil rights America, Irish people, Jewish people and Travellers were not required to sit at the back of the bus. In apartheid South Africa, these groups were allowed to vote. And at the height of slavery, there were no white-seeming people manacled on the slave ships.”
