There seems to be something of an inconsistency between what polls are saying with regard to #UKGeneralElection2024 and what the main parties are reported to be doing. I will do my best to outline what I think may be going on. Hope someone will find it interesting.
I should add that should #dianeabbott be re-elected to the #houseofcommons - which now seems a near certainty - she will be its female member with the longest period of continuous membership and thus succeed #harrietharman as 'Mother of the House' . A much greater distinction than a peerage would have been!
Aha, a(nother) Keir Starmer U-Turn that this time is likely to be welcomed quite broadly on the Left... he has confirmed that Diane Abbott will be standing in the election & will not be 'blocked'.
Altogether, this has been a classic unforced error & really has not done much for many to calm their nerves over the direction Labour has been travelling (whatever the logic of minimise the profile available for right qing attack).
@therightarticle
But she hasn't been selected yet and the NEC have yet to approve or overrule ANY local party selection process. It ain't over till the Hackney lady sings..
I don't trust Starmer OR the NEC.
Not till I've seen the list of those standing produced by the authorities. #DianeAbbott #Labour #Starmer
After this week, the mask is off. "Labour’s leaders are sending a clear signal that once they have secured No 10, they will behave with the same power-drunk arrogance and the same disregard for democratic norms that they are showing now towards their own MPs"
Owen Jones
The Labour Party, selecting General Election candidates, should be wary of ignoring the voters of 2019 - 10,295,912 who voted Labour, “for the many, not the few.” The House of Commons arithmetic disguises the fact that more people voted against Conservatives than for them. If the party does not welcome Corbyn or Abbott, how much of a home will it be for the voters it needs? Please don’t throw out the baby with the bath water, the UK needs change! #ukpolitics#labour#KierStarmer#DianeAbbott
'How [Labour] deals with Abbott in the next 48 hours will be a defining moment. She is but one MP, but, more than Starmer’s high command seems to understand, she matters: to many of Britain’s minorities, to women, to working-class voters.... the first Black woman to enter parliament must be accorded the dignity that her place in history deserves'!
How Labour 'deals with' Abbott may well inform how many now vote!
Today's Guardian briefing focuses on the shabby treatment of Diane Abbott and the latest suspicious purge of leftwingers by Labour, including Lloyd Russell Moyle, Faiza Shaheen and Apsana Begum.
"The way Abbott has been treated by the party.... creates a real problem for Labour and its future relationships with Black communities.
..as someone who was blocked from standing for the Labour party in 2022, I have felt its treatment of her personally. To many Black people, it feels like a mirror of the disrespect we still face on a daily basis"
Maurice Mcleod , anti-racism activist, social commentator and Labour councillor
Q. what does the treatment of much maligned MP Diane Abbot tell us about the Labour Party?
Maurice Mcleod suggests quite a lot, and its not so good....
And just in case you've forgotten, in the run up to the 2017 election nearly half of all offensive & abusive tweets sent to female MPs (and this was a lot of tweets) were sent to Diane Abbot.
So, now it looks like the Labour Party is joining in with the Trolls (albeit more subtly).
@ChrisMayLA6
First Labour alienates LGBT voters over its trans policies, then Muslim voters over Gaza, now it alienates Black voters over Diane Abbott, whose awful treatment goes much further back ( see the Forde Report). However, Labour welcomes white Tory MPs Christian Wakeford and Natalie Elphicke, who both have a history of anti-immigration rhetoric and voting. And it's only in oppostion. What will it do in power?
A disingenuous man tries to tell us that Diane Abbott is both expelled and a part of the Labour Party, in some Schrodinger's state of confusion.
Going to be grand with this guy running the country, isn't it? /s
Although the Right wing media is reporting Diane Abbot has had the whip restored but will be 'banned' from standing, what seems likely to happen is that she may/will not be selected as the candidate for her constituency, thereby muddying the waters on whether she has banned or not supported by the local party....
There's going to be a lot of contrasting narratives in the next few days, but its not clear whether if rejected she'd have time to organise standing as an independent
#DianeAbbott is over 70 years old & is #Labour's past. I understand why she was suspended but she had a very valid point from a Black person's perspective
HOWEVER, saying what she did left Labour wide open to criticisms of #Antisemitism, just as the #Israel & #Palestine war broke out, & with #GE2024 on the horizon
This was the opportunity the desperate #Tories were looking for, leaving Labour little option but to be seen to be throwing the book at her. A wider discussion is needed
Labour doesn't know what to do, they hate Diane Abbott but losing another seat to an independent in London would look bad. It won't effect their chances of Government but these are vain, public-school boys and they have to WIN (especially against a Black Lady...)
Victoria Derbyshire has revealed this morning that Labour's investigation into Diane Abbott's comments to The Observer on Jewish, Irish & Travellers, concluded 5 months ago.
She apologised at the time and withdrew her remarks, but had the whip withdrawn.
The NEC wrote to her in December 2013 informing her that they had concluded their eight month long inquiry into her comments.
@ShredderLivesOn Smacks of racism to me. If you're white and Tory, you're welcomed with open arms (see Christian Wakeford, Natalie Elphicke and all the new business donors). #DianeAbbott#Starmer#LabourParty
"Until I became a parliamentary candidate, I wasn’t leftwing enough,” she told me. “Once I won the selection, I was an extremist.” Her monstering had begun, before she had even stood for parliament."
Good long read from Andy Beckett on Diane Abbott, the first Black woman MP and one of my heroines.