Diane Abbott – Double Standards, Confusion and Injustice
Wed 29 May 2024
JVL Introduction
JVL, like so many others, is appalled at the way Diane Abbott has been treated. We stand in solidarity with her and all those Labour Party members on the left who have been treated so abysmally by the Party.
Here we recap what has happened to her and share some of what respected lawyer and Ms Abbott’s friend, Jacqueline McKenzie said about what has been happening, her close work with the Jewish community in her constituency, the unprecedented levels of abuse that she has suffered and also the potential impact on the Black community.
We link below to articles and our earlier statement about Diane’s treatment since her suspension.
LL
The story so far….
Diane Abbott was suspended from the Labour Party and lost the Whip after she had written a clumsily worded but not antisemitic letter to the Observer in April 2023. She immediately apologised and withdrew her remarks. We remind readers of the double standards applied to Diane Abbott and to others on the left of the Party; for example when Steve Reed, Shadow Secretary of State for the Environment) “tweeted a classic antisemitic trope, asking if Jewish businessman porn-baron Richard Desmond were “the puppet-master for the entire Tory cabinet””, Sir Keir Starmer said it’s OK: Reed didn’t really mean it.” (JVL July 2020)
By contrast Ms. Abbott was subjected to an unnecessary and ridiculously long investigation into her comments, an investigation that we were told by Sir Keir Starmer and other prominent Labour Party figures was still continuing up to the last few days. On Friday Sir Keir Starmer said the investigation was ongoing and drawing to a close (reported on 24th May here).
However, yesterday , on Tuesday May 28th,it became clear that this was not true and had not been true for more than five months. The Investigation had already concluded in December 2023 when Diane Abbott received a formal warning and was required to do an online antisemitism awareness module, which she did in February. She then informed the Chief Whip that she had completed all the processes and he acknowledged that confirmation. Since then, the issue of restoration of the Whip has rested with the Chief Whip, who works directly under the same Sir Keir Starmer. In most references to what was wrongly described as an independent continuing investigation, much was made of the contrast with the interference of Jeremy Corbyn when leader, for which most of the evidence suggested he was attempting to speed up the disciplinary processes. Much was also made of the duty so well performed by the current leader to keep right out!
Nothing was done until the fact of the investigation’s conclusion had been leaked to BBC’s Newsnight. Shortly after this the Whip was suddenly restored allowing her to rejoin the Parliamentary Labour Party, which is not, presumably, meeting and certainly not voting on legislation as we are already into the election period. The next day (May 29th) Ms Abbott, the first and for many years the only Black woman MP, has reported that she had been barred from standing, information that had been reported by The Times at 8.20 the previous evening, saying that Labour sources had confirmed that “she will not be endorsed as a candidate by Labour’s national executive committee”. This is now being denied by Starmer who says it is up to the National Executive Committee. Given the level of duplicity so far shown by Starmer in relation to Diane’s situation we have no reason to trust his denial. Consequently, like experienced political commentators and Diane herself, we are left confused, which may be deliberate.
Now, we are pleased to see that six affiliated Unions have written to Starmer saying:
“…Diane …should be confirmed as the candidate at the next general election for Hackney North and Stoke Newington.” (These Unions are ASLEF, CWU, FBU, NUM, TSSA and Unite)
Diane Abbott deserves better
On 29th May 2024 Jacqueline McKenzie, who is often referred to as “the Windrush lawyer” and a friend of Diane Abbott was interviewed by the BBC’s Today programme. She raised a number of issues, not least the abuse to which Diane Abbott has been subjected, her longstanding work with the Jewish community in her constituency and the impact that this decision might have for Black voters. This is some of what she said that we consider important:
Jacqueline McKenzie (photo Martin Godwin, The Guardian)
“I think Diane’s really shocked; she has been for a very long time because this investigation has gone on for 13 months and I think those around her were quite surprised yesterday to learn that the investigation was concluded in December last year…But what was really astonishing about that was the fact that just this week we saw Keir Starmer, the Leader of the LP as well as senior officials saying that an investigation was still under way and I really think it is incumbent on them to explain have they been honest about this process. I think this is what is really shocking.”
When asked whether Ms. Abbott wanted to stand, Ms McKenzie replied:
“I think she wants to be given the opportunity to make that decision. She is a hugely important figure in the LP – she joined in her youth, significant that she was the first Black woman in Parliament. She has an extremely incredible track record of service, including across her working for and representing all communities in Hackney and I say this as somebody who spent two decades as a senior officer at the LB Hackney where I was sometimes at the receiving end of her enquiries as to why things were not going well. And that included working very closely with the Jewish community. I often attended events in that community that Diane was always present at, she as a very close friend of the late Rabbi Kinder, she is very close to Rabbi Gluck and it is total nonsense that she could be discredited regarding antisemitism because of some remarks that she made that she withdrew and apologised for.
She is truly sorry about those remarks because she meant no offence and is not antisemitic and you know if you look at Diane’s voting record, Hackney has the second largest Jewish community in the UK. I happen to know that that community is mostly located in her constituency in the north of the Borough.” Ms McKenzie then reminded us of Diane Abbott’s majorities: “In 2010 it was 14,000, in 2015, 24,000, in 2017, 35,000 and even in the year of 2019 that was hugely about antisemitism, she still had a 33,000 majority. If the Jewish community believe that Diane was antisemitic there is no way she would have been polling those sorts of figures and those huge majorities.”
When asked whether Ms Abbott might stand as an independent:
“I do not know, she has not expressed any wishes to do that but I think, given the number of years that she has spent in the Labour Party…what is really quite shocking about this and if there has been some duplicity here, we do need to know about this, it won’t be the end of the story. We do need to know who is deciding what here. There is a local CLP and we understand that she is extremely popular there but when you think that Diane Abbott is the person who has been bullied and harassed and who has suffered the most terrible abuse…and this has been for most of her life; she was the only Black person at her grammar school, in her Cambridge Class, in the Home Office that she joined, when she became a journalist and as the first Black woman in Parliament and the only one for a very long time. Labour should afford Diane greater respect and dignity than have these leaks and some sort of mystery as to whether there is something underhand going on here. We have seen other MPs saying terrible things and have the Whip restored and be allowed to stand, why is Diane being treated differently? And this also has some implications for the wider African-Caribbean community. I’m not saying people should vote according to race but people are extremely concerned about what does this say about antiracism in the LP.”
The interviewer said he would put these points to Wes Streeting later in the programme but he did not raise issue of racism in the LP. It seemed however that Wes had no knowledge of the decision taken in respect of Diane and no views as to whether she should have the opportunity of standing in the election.
Kim Johnson MP has tweeted in solidarity and we await a statement from her Campaign Group colleagues. Meanwhile there are those from the communities she represented who have called a protest.
On 28th May, Politics Home reported on the situation:
“A Labour front bencher said the process undertaken by the party towards Abbott had seen her treated poorly and “double standards” applied.
“This doesn’t surprise BAME MPs at all because every important decision in the party is currently being made by white men.
“They’ve shown complete disregard for the Black community. Diane is a red line for a lot of Black people. The fact it’s a bunch of white men making these decisions demonstrates they don’t realise it’s a red line.”
The front bencher went on to describe the decision not to allow Abbott to be a Labour candidate at the upcoming election as “very upsetting” and “a slap in the face”.
They added: “Diane is the reason a lot of us got into politics. Why is Keir Starmer pissing off an important caucus?”
Why, indeed?
my comments :
Could it have been the case, that Abbott had just meant to say, that being Jewish, might be perceived, as stemming from a race – and we are of course fully aware of the fact, that many people who do consider themselves Jews, are of that very conviction, because they do consider themselves as being a member of a separate race – instead of being a member of a religious belief system, just as a Christian or a Muslim is. So being a Jew is a choice, and not the consequence of a genetical factor : Being a (white or black) Jew is stemming from nurture, not nature. There is no Jewish gene (Zoossman-Diskin).
Contrary to that observation, being a “black” person (or a “Chinese” person, or an “Indian” person) is not the subject of a choice, but the consequence of some genetic property.
Which does not mean, that – from an objective scientifically proven viewpoint – a black person is from a different race, but a black person is treated as if being from a different race by many people that do not own, that specific set of genes.
The problem is, that black people have socially / historically (slave-trade) been perceived, as stemming from a different AND “inferior” race.
So the LP / Starmer should have given Abbott a decent opportunity, to explain exactly what she has meant to say.
Explanation for this omission : the machinations from the very same LP faction (the LFI), that – directed by the Mossad (Jazeera files) – had been extremely busy, of diminishing any chance of the Corbyn led Labour Party, to win the 2019 election, and subsequently effectively preventing the chance of a Corbyn government pursuing a BDS policy, similar to Mossad director Yossi Cohen trying to discredit the ICC-prosecutor.
