Sir Keir Starmer has been having a good campaign. Rishi Sunak’s gamble on an early election has done little to dent Labour’s enormous poll leads. The Labour leader is becoming more fluent in media interviews and more confident meeting voters in his minutely stage-managed appearances over pints and in town halls. So the unnecessary mess surrounding the future of Diane Abbott in the Labour party is an unwelcome reminder of Starmerite intolerance.
Ms Abbott is a significant figure in the Labour party, having become the country’s first black female MP in 1987. Last year she was suspended from her party after she claimed that Irish people, Jewish people and Travellers did not experience racism “all their lives”. This was an offensive mistake, and she rightly apologised immediately. She was suspended from the party, and Labour’s national executive committee launched an investigation into the affair, which was completed by December, resulting in a formal warning to the MP. She subsequently in February took a two-hour online antisemitism awareness training course. That should have been the end of the matter.
However, instead of returning the whip to Ms Abbott, Sir Keir – and members of his shadow cabinet – continued to claim that the investigation was unresolved when it had been completed. Sir Keir had the power to allow Ms Abbott back on to the Labour benches. He chose not to exercise it. Sir Keir’s office, it seemed, was content to run down the clock to the general election, either because they wished to replace Ms Abbott with a preferred candidate, or to prevent her from having the choice of stepping down on her own terms. This plan, if it was a plan, fell apart when reports suggested she would be barred from standing again in her constituency, provoking a backlash. Within hours Ms Abbott was back in the Labour party. Sir Keir issued a statement saying who would be the candidate for Hackney North and Stoke Newington was “a decision for the national executive committee”.
Ms Abbott has had to endure an unbelievable amount of racism and misogynist abuse. During the 2017 election campaign, she received 45% of all of the abusive tweets sent to female MPs. Her humiliation since last year by the party speaks of a lack of humanity. It is also disrespectful to an MP who became the first black person to represent Labour at prime minister’s questions. Politics is a rough trade. Sir Keir, in March, rightly defended Ms Abbott as a “trailblazer” who has inspired others. This came after the Conservative party’s biggest donor was reported as saying that she “should be shot”. Voters wouldn’t have expected anything less. Yet they might be surprised to know that the Labour leader had ignored her pleas for the whip to be returned.
All this casts the Labour party in a poor light. Sir Keir should be concentrating on winning power rather than becoming distracted by rows over MP selections. He has made his point about turning the page on the leadership of his leftwing predecessor. But it is a strategic error of judgment to believe that purging the party of dissent will help him connect with voters.
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• This article was amended on 31 May 2024. An earlier version said that Diane Abbott was suspended from the party over a letter suggesting that Jewish people and Travellers did not experience racism “all their lives”. This omitted to include Irish people.
