Diane Abbott 'banned' from standing as Labour MP

Diane Abbott has said she will not be allowed to run as a Labour candidate in the upcoming general election, hours after she was readmitted to the party following an investigation into alleged antisemitism.

The 70-year-old MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington confirmed in a statement that despite having the whip restored, she has been banned from running for the party, "bringing to an end a near 40-year career as one of the party’s highest-profile politicians", said The Guardian. She did not comment on the possibility of following in the footsteps of Jeremy Corbyn and running as an independent candidate.

But Keir Starmer on a visit to the West Midlands today told the media: "No decision has been taken to bar Diane Abbott."

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"The process that we were going through ended with the restoration of the whip the other day, so she's a member of the Parliamentary Labour Party, and no decision has been taken barring her."

The claim that Labour’s National Executive Committee had chosen not to endorse Abbott as a candidate was first reported by The Times on Tuesday evening, with the decision said to be "a precursor to allowing her to leave politics 'with dignity'".

A spokesman for Labour's left-wing Momentum group said the party's treatment of Abbott was "outrageous" and accused Keir Starmer's leadership of "trying to force Britain’s first black woman MP out of parliament".

Abbott was suspended from the party in April 2023 after writing a letter in The Observer that suggested Jewish people do not experience racism, but rather prejudice which she compared to that faced by "redheads". She apologised for the remark, but has been sitting as an independent while an official investigation was carried out.

The investigation concluded in December 2023, when Abbott was reportedly given a formal warning and "told to complete an 'antisemitism awareness course'" in February, said The Times. Her allies are said to have been "dismayed" that it took another three months for the whip to be restored.

While "the Labour left are in uproar" in the wake of the announcement, said Politico, "others in the party are more sanguine", seeing it as a necessary manoeuvre to support Starmer's claim the party has changed since the Antisemitism row which engulfed the party under Corbyn

There are three "credible" Labour candidates who could now stand in Hackney North and Stoke Newington, the seat held by Abbott since 1987, said The Guardian: Anntoinette Bramble, the deputy mayor of Hackney council; Sem Moema, the London assembly member for North East; and Mete Coban, a Labour councillor for Stoke Newington.