He’s denying wrong-doing, but is Keir Starmer trying to time Diane Abbott out of her election chances?

Ms Abbott had been suspended from the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) in April last year after making comments in a letter to the press that could best be described as “clumsy”.

Labour restored the party whip to her yesterday (Tuesday, May 28, 2024) after the BBC said not only had it concluded its investigation into the cause of her suspension last December, but she had carried out remedial actions as required of her.

The conclusion was that she had been kept out of the PLP for no reason, for around three months. The next day, she was back in.

But this morning (May 29), she told the BBC’s Today programme:

“Although the whip has been restored, I am banned from standing as a Labour candidate.”

This has sparked another flurry of activity.

Starmer was challenged about it at a campaign visit to Worcester, where he said:

“No that’s not true. No decision has been taken to bar Diane Abbott.”

Until yesterday, he had been saying that any decision on whether to re-admit Ms Abbott to the Labour Party would have to be taken by the party’s ruling National Executive Committee – a comment that we now know not to be true, because she’s back in.

But it seems the NEC is now to decide whether she can stand as a candidate.

It meets next week, and its meetings are usually on Tuesdays, meaning the date will probably be June 4.

The deadline for candidates to hand in their nominations is 4pm on June 7.

So I must ask: Is Starmer trying to time Diane Abbott out of her election chances?

If she is denied a chance to represent Labour by the NEC, it seems unlikely that she will be able to do anything to reverse the decision; there simply won’t be the time.

And will she stand as an Independent, in the same way as her long-term left-wing colleague Jeremy Corbyn? From her words, this seems unlikely. She said:

“I will be campaigning for a Labour victory.”

It seems the people of Hackney and Stoke Newington will be voting on a new MP – whether they wanted one or not.

Meanwhile, we’re hearing allegations that Starmer is furious that he was forced to re-admit Ms Abbott to the PLP after somebody leaked information to the BBC, and that he has launched a new witch-hunt – emotive phrase, that – for the person who passed on that information, with staffers’ phones handed in for inspection:

If so, that would tend to indicate that he was up to no good.

Labour tribalists: are you still convinced that Starmer’s party is the change we all need?

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