Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
LAST UPDATE | 30 May 2024
WITH A GENERAL election campaign underway in the UK, the Tories are not the only party whose members and leadership are at odds.
While Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has felt the need to tell Conservative MPs that campaigning is not optional, after one member flew off to Greece on holiday this week, Veteran Labour MP Diane Abbott has accused her party leader Keir Starmer of an “appalling” cull of left-wing members as she faces continued uncertainty about her own political future.
However, Starmer has insisted he is not trying to block left-wingers from standing for the UK Labour party.
Voters will go to the polls across the UK on 4 July this year.
Appalling. Whose clever idea has it been to have a cull of left wingers? https://t.co/bDNrmACfRN
— Diane Abbott (@HackneyAbbott) May 29, 2024
Abbott said she wanted to fight to retain her seat “as long as it is possible” but she criticised decisions made by Labour to exclude candidates from the left of the party, whose influence Starmer has sought to marginalise since taking over as leader.
Starmer insisted no decision has yet been taken about whether Abbott – who in 1987 became the first black woman elected to the UK Parliament – would be allowed to defend her seat in London.
He said today he wants the “highest quality” candidates to stand and added: “The situation in relation to Diane Abbott is that no decision has been taken to bar her and you have to remember that she was a trailblazer as an MP, she overcame incredible challenges to achieve what she achieved in her political career.
“But I’ve always had the aspiration that we will have the best quality candidates as we go into this election.”
A number of candidates have complained about their treatment by the party’s leadership.
Starmer is being accused by Labour politicians of removing some left-wing candidates from contention and then “parachuting” new candidates into contest seats at short notice ahead of the election.
Lloyd Russell-Moyle, who was MP for Brighton Kemptown, said he has been suspended by Labour over what he called a “vexatious and politically motivated complaint” against him, and that he cannot stand under the Labour banner at the election.
Another candidate, Faiza Shaheen said she was in a “state of shock” after being blocked by the party from running for Labour.
In response, Abbott said: “Appalling. Whose clever idea has it been to have a cull of left wingers?”
Shaheen got into hot water after attention was drawn to a post she liked on social media about criticising Israel, which critics said fed into antisemitic tropes. She told the BBC that she recognised what was wrong with the post and said she didn’t remember liking it.
She has complained of double standards in the Labour party when it comes to dealing with Islamophobia.
Shaheen told BBC’s Newsnight: “On top of Gaza, on top of Diane Abbott and now this to me, when there’s such clear double standards of how other people have been treated when stuff has happened … what message are you sending my community? What message are you sending the black community?”
The Labour Muslim Network said the treatment of Shaheen was “unacceptable”.
Shadow cabinet minister Darren Jones denied there had been a “purge” of the left, telling Times Radio: “I don’t think that’s true. I mean, there are many colleagues of mine in the Parliamentary Labour Party who would define themselves as being on the left who are endorsed Labour Party candidates standing in their constituency.”
A member of Labour’s ruling national executive committee (NEC) said ultimately it would be a decision for Starmer whether Abbott was allowed to defend her seat.
Abbot had the Labour whip suspended in April 2023 pending an investigation after she suggested Jewish, Irish and Traveller people experience prejudice but not racism.
The whip was restored on Tuesday but Abbott said she was “dismayed” by reports that she could be barred as a candidate.
Another Labour candidate, Mish Rahman, told Times Radio: “Keir Starmer hides behind technicalities. He’s been hiding behind the independent process technicality for a while when actually, as we’ve now discovered, the independent process ended in December.
“Now he’s hiding behind the NEC.”
Rahman said the NEC “will rubber stamp” a list of candidates during the General Election process, but claimed “it will be the leadership’s decision” whether to include Abbott on the list, because the leadership “holds a majority on the NEC”.
He added: “So when Keir Starmer says, ‘oh, the NEC will decide’, at the end of the day, it’s more lawyer talk. It’s him and his action which will actually decide whether Diane Abbott is a Labour MP or not.”
Labour’s General Election campaign has been overshadowed by the internal chaos over selections.
Russell-Moyle said he was “gutted” after receiving an “administrative suspension letter” and being told he could not stand as a Labour candidate.
In a statement sent to the PA news agency, he said: “Someone (who remains anonymous to me) has made what I believe to be a vexatious and politically motivated complaint about my behaviour eight years ago. This is a false allegation that I dispute totally and I believe it was designed to disrupt this election.
“There isn’t enough time to defend myself as these processes within the party take too long, so the party have told me that I will not be eligible to be a candidate at the next election.”
A Labour spokesperson said the party “takes all complaints extremely seriously and they are fully investigated in line with our rules and procedures, and any appropriate disciplinary action is taken”.
With reporting from Press Association
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
I think I know whose responsible for the culling of the Left Wing – The Left Wing themselves. When they are interested in more gender neutral toilets rather than ICUs, when they are more worried about gender pay gap than unemployment, when they are more concerned about Islamophobia rather than worrying about ghettoization in neighborhoods – they distance themselves from the quiet masses.
@Kush OMeara: The gender pay gap is important. Unemployment is important. Islamophobia is important. ‘Ghettoization in neighbourhoods’? I think you may have imagined that one.
What makes you think that you speak for ‘the quiet masses’? Diane Abbott has been an MP since 1987, so she must be doing something right.
@Brendan O’Brien: amazing how many speakers there are for the ‘quiet masses’. Regarding Starmer, he is running on an anti chaos ticket, yet here he is generating problems that could have been avoided. The Abbott issue has been dragging on for almost a year now. Can he not accommodate differing views within the party? She has apologised for her letter, why not just move on.
@Kush OMeara: I think you’ve confused traditional left(standing up for the working class) with the current penchant for identity politics and neo liberal corporatism that has become popular across the political spectrum. The left/right paradigm hasn’t been relevant since the latter part of the last century. It’s a top/bottom (with the top pushing ever downward) paradigm that we currently have and yet so many on the bottom are distracted by divide and conquer tactics employed by those tiny few at the top. Let’s start punching up please
@Kush OMeara: The so-called gender pay gap is a myth. Differences in pay based on gender were made illegal both in Ireland and the UK fifty years ago and that also applied to work of equal value. Cases of gender based discrimination in employment were referred to the Labour Court under the relevant legislation. There were quite a few cases in the early years but these tapered off over time and are practically nonexistent now.
What really exists is a difference in earnings between men and women. Most household income is earned by the labour of men. The primary reason for this is the choices couples make to suit their personal circumstances and the fact that men generally work longer hours and in more demanding jobs including the death, danger and dirt jobs. Most women in low paid jobs have a male partner who has the responsibility of being the principal earner in the family.
Feminists making careers out of the gender pay gap myth ignore these facts and politicians lack the courage to stand up to them. They also ignore the other side of the ledger, the gender spending gap. While more household income is earned through the labour of men, more of that money is spent on women-only products than on men-only products as can be clearly seen in any large store.
@Nodon: you clearly don’t understand the definition of the gender pay gap
@SYaxJ2Ts: irrelevant. This is the Journal.ie. No evidence, no understanding, no experience necessary.
@SYaxJ2Ts: neither do you if you cannot see that it is a myth based on the false assumption that women are discriminated against in the workplace.
@Kush OMeara: Except the Tories have been in power for well over a decade. Obviously you only care about trolling.
Tories in red
Sir Keir Starmer despite his claims is neither a Socialist nor a Progressive. He is an avowed Zionist, admirers Thatcherism, is very right of center and has been parachuted by The Establishment into his position because the Tories have become far too chaotic to be trusted.
@Matt Rogers: I agree, but considering the FPTP system they have over there, I will still hope he is PM come August. Anything is better for Britain (and it’s neighbours, i.e. us) than Rishi and the Tories.
What I hope happens is that Labour win well, but not well enough that it gives Starmer the ultimate platform to go wild with his Blairite policies.
@Matt Rogers: another Rothschild Zio puppet
Democracy at work. Do you want to vote for the Tories or the other Tories?
@Ollie McGlinchey: The other Tories, not the current bunch thank you, less we get Borris back as PM.
@David Guiney: They’re almost identical. It’s Coke and Pepsi, Dave. How can you think it will be any different?
@Ollie McGlinchey: Democracy is a marketing slogan at best. We live in an obvious kleptocracy(please Google this word and tell me it doesn’t perfectly describe how our society is operated) The electorate are only given a very limited choice and that choice must fit in to the system that already exists and that system is controlled
@Darth O’Leary: Stammer promises to cancel the Rwanda plan. So that’s a No from me. I’m out.
Labour in the UK going right wing under Starmer. Tories going far right. Ridiculous situation. God forbid that Labour might actually be left leaning and look after the average person over billionaires
Is just me that thinks the stamer lad is a fraud
@Robert Halvey: The party is a fraud either way they turn. Their feigned truth (sorry’ ‘Manifesto’) is frightening, their politics naive, many of its members darkly questionable, and their history comic (Kinnock falling on the seaside sand: an omen that he would lose the election/career over), and then ‘the young turk’ Blair saying yes to Iraq war 2….which has proved a pivotal point in world history. I want to call them ‘Carpet Baggers’, but that’s not a great fit. They are ‘the devil we do not know’.
Seriously? Praising that naive communist Abbot, who can’t count to ten? She’s a millionaire (which is not a bad thing), but would see the Brits embrace Mao and Marx in a heartbeat.
There’s this story of Abbot and Corbyn, who as a romantic couple back in the late 60′s went to east Germany on Jeremy’s motorbike so as to tour and embrace the communist dream…and I guess to “ape’ the Motorcycle Diaries; a book written about the early years of Che Guevara who did a similar (original) thing winding his way around South America…before finally making his way to a pre-revolutionary Cuba. Corbyn…Che? Please!
No doubt that will be another Kyle Hayes job for Diarmud
have your say