Diane Abbott looks set to regain the Labour whip – but others are out of luck

Disciplinary matters in Starmer’s Labour seem shrouded in mystery, says Sean O’Grady, but the racism episode could well extend Diane Abbott’s career

Diane Abbott had a simple message for Keir Starmer this week (Parliament TV)

Hateful abuse from a major Tory donor, Frank Hester, directed at Diane Abbott has provided a timely reminder that she has been on the receiving end of racism and misogyny since she became Britain’s first female black MP, in 1987.

She is also now one of the longer-serving MPs of any party but, despite the recent wave of sympathy, her future parliamentary career remains in extreme jeopardy. She had the Labour whip removed last year after she wrote a letter to a newspaper that her party leadership considered carried antisemitic sentiments, was out under investigation, but there is no sign of a conclusion to that process or any indication if she will be allowed back into the parliamentary Labour party. Indeed, it seems that mystery often surrounds such disciplinary matters in the people’s party, despite it being led by a distinguished lawyer. Some interesting questions arise…

What does Diane Abbott want?

There’s an interesting account circulating on Twitter of an exchange between Abbott and her party leader after Prime Minister’s Questions this week. Keir Starmer, having made magnificent use of Hester’s remarks, walked up to where Abbott was sitting and the conversation (according to her) went as follows:

Keir Starmer: “Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”

Diane Abbott: “You could restore the whip.”

Keir Starmer: “I understand, just let me know if there’s anything…”

Diane Abbott: “Restore the whip.”

Keir Starmer: “I understand.”

Plainly, Abbott wants to continue as Labour MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, despite the endless abuse she receives. The curious result of Hester’s verbal assault has been to make it much more likely that Abbott will indeed be able to do so. She has been  somewhat redeemed from the events that led to her suspension in April 2023 and Starmer is rumoured to be willing to show some clemency.

Is it a good idea to restore the whip to Diane Abbott?

On balance, yes, and it now seems inevitable. To borrow Michael Gove’s phrase in relation to Hester, it would be an act of “Christian forgiveness”. She has shown remorse for her claim that the racism experienced by Irish, Jewish and Traveller people was in some sense easier than that inflicted on Black people (and she has always said that this claim was published by mistake, and that it was only a draft of comments she was making).

Another factor is that there’s a fair chance Abbott would get elected as an independent, defeating the official Labour candidate, at the general election; she is extremely well-known in the constituency, and scored two-thirds of the vote in 2019.

Abbott will not be an easy colleague for Starmer, and she’ll continue to speak out about racism in her own party as well as elsewhere. She will always be a woman of the left. But inside the Labour tent, she will be less destructive than as a loose cannon independent MP, free to form an alliance with Jeremy Corbyn and maybe even George Galloway.

Is it likely she’ll be welcomed back into the parliamentary party?

Yes. Now that the nation and her party have been reminded of her profile and the hardships she has suffered, it seems in bad taste to leave her effectively expelled from the party, against natural justice. The episode has endowed Abbott with a certain moral power, and Starmer’s recent difficulties over Gaza represent a moment of weakness for his leadership. He doesn’t need any more trouble with Diane Abbott, especially as he has just cited her plight in a Labour fundraising email.

Labour’s investigation into Abbott has dragged on for so long, with no sign of conclusion, that it now seems otiose. As she has described it: “In effect, the Labour apparatus has decapitated the elected leadership of the constituency party to install its own, hand-picked personnel and replace me as the candidate prior to the next election.”

“This is what some have clearly wanted all along. Taken together, the procedural impropriety, Starmer’s pronouncement of my guilt, the four-month delay in the investigation, the repeated refusal to try to reach any accommodation, all point in the direction that the verdict has already been reached.”

Could any other suspended Labour MPs make a comeback?

Middlesbrough MP Andy McDonald provides an interesting precedent for Abbott’s rehabilitation. He was suspended in October after speaking at a Palestine solidarity event and using the phrase “...until all people, Israelis and Palestinians, between the river and the sea can live in peaceful liberty.”

At the time, a Labour spokesperson said the comments were “deeply offensive, particularly at a time of rising antisemitism which has left Jewish people fearful for their safety.”

Now, a few months later, he has had the whip restored.

Are any ex-Labour MPs still doomed?

Yes, including Jeremy Corbyn. Only a few years ago, his surprise leadership was unassailable and he’d achieved a spectacular electoral success in 2017, albeit an even more spectacular collapse in 2019. It is not long since Starmer was in Corbyn’s shadow cabinet and was campaigning (sincerely or not) to make him prime minister. Corbyn is the first Labour leader since Ramsay MacDonald in 1931 to have been expelled from the party and his rise and fall has been one of the more dramatic political fables of recent years. Claudia Webbe (Leicester East), won’t be an official Labour candidate, and neither will Conor McGinn (St Helen’s North).

Any other mysteries?

Almost as tragic as the Corbyn morality tale may be that of Nick Brown, long serving Labour chief whip and former cabinet minister. Brown was suspended from Labour in September 2022 over an undisclosed event 25 years previously. In December last year he resigned from Labour in protest at the protracted and inconclusive disciplinary process, and he won’t be contesting the next election in any case.

Others in limbo are: Bambos Charalambous (Enfield Southgate); Geraint Davies (Swansea West); Kate Osamor (Edmonton) and Christina Rees (Neath).

Could the Labour dissenters become whipless rebels?

No. Some won’t make it back to the Commons, and in any case, they don’t form a cohesive ideological group such as eurosceptic “bastards” that plagued John Major in the 1990s. Labour’s Right is in charge for the foreseeable future.