Diane Abbott in Hackney (Alamy)
3 min read
Labour’s parliamentary candidate for Camberwell and Peckham, Miatta Fahnbulleh, has said voters in the area’s Black community are “really hurt” by a row between Labour’s leadership and Diane Abbott over whether she should be able to stand for the party in Hackney North and Stoke Newington.
Abbott was suspended from the Labour Party last year after writing that Jewish people, Irish people and Travellers do not face the same form of racism as Black people. She later withdrew her comments and apologised.
She was given the Labour whip back this week, but according to a briefing to The Times, Abbott would be barred from running as Hackney North and Stoke Newington’s Labour candidate in the general election, after representing the seat for 37 years, when she became the first Black MP.
Labour leader Keir Starmer has since said that Abbott is free to stand for the seat, echoing deputy leader Angela Rayner’s comments that she “doesn’t see any reason” why Abbott could not run.
Miatta Fahnbulleh, a senior economic adviser to Rayner and the Labour candidate for Camberwell and Peckham, where nearly half the local population identifies as Black, Black British, Caribbean or African has said “people are really hurt by this” in her community.
“The reason they’re hurt by it is because, whether you agree with her politics or not, whether she’s got things right or not, she’s a huge iconic figure, like Harriet Harman,” she told PoliticsHome.
Harman, who decided not to run for office at this general election, had represented Labour in Camberwell and Peckham since 1983 when very few women were MPs.
“[There’s] just so much affection because they were trailblazers,” Fahnbulleh continued. “There’s a whole generation of people where [Abbott] was part of that generation of Black leaders that first came into politics, and showed many of us that there weren’t ceilings that couldn’t be broken, and blazed that trail for us.
“So that, in my view, should require some respect and dignity. I don’t know the ins and outs of the investigation. I think it could have been handled better, quicker. And I’m glad that she’s been given the whip back.
“For me, whatever she decides to do, I think she should just be given the space to do it with the dignity that the level, if you like, her contribution to our politics has earned.”
Labour sources had said a plan was in place that would have seen the whip restored to Abbott before her announcing her retirement. However, the briefing to the media disrupted that plan.
A source close to the leadership told PoliticsHome on Thursday that the row over Abbott was the result of “tragic miscommunication” and “macho” briefing, and it had become an “unwelcome distraction” during the election campaign.
Fahnbulleh agreed that the row had been unhelpful. “When people wade in on stuff they didn’t know it annoys me, because it creates noise where there was no substance,” she said.
“What I do know is there is great hurt in the Black community, because people think she’s not been treated with the regard that a Black leader should be. And I hope that we can find a way of resolving it.”
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