Diane Abbott: Keir Starmer treated me as a ‘non-person’

Abbott also spoke about her suspension from Labour in April 2023, after writing a letter to the Observer newspaper in which she suggested Jewish, Irish and Traveller people were not subject to racism “all their lives”.

She apologised and withdrew her remarks. A day later, Starmer said the letter was antisemitic and an investigation was begun.

As Newsnight revealed in May, that inquiry was completed in December, with Abbott being given a formal warning and completing a course on antisemitism. However she was not told whether she would be allowed to stand as a Labour candidate in her constituency at the general election.

Abbott told Newsnight she felt “very low” and “depressed” during the inquiry into her because she believed the party was preparing to “get rid of me altogether as an MP”.

She said she felt she was treated differently compared to other MPs who had made alleged antisemitic comments – and said she was never called for an interview or even spoken to, a part of the inquiry and was left “in limbo”.

“I think that Keir Starmer wanted to finish his clear-out of the left in the parliamentary Labour Party and by writing a very ill-advised letter, I gave him the opportunity to move against me.

“And I think what they were trying to do was to string out and string out the investigation. So when a general election is around the corner, they could just move me out of the way as a Labour candidate because I wouldn’t be in the parliamentary Labour Party, and they would parachute in somewhere else”.

When asked why the leader would want her ejected from the party permanently she said it was because she “was one of the last leading left wingers in the parliamentary Labour Party”.

“Keir Starmer is always saying, It’s the new Labour Party… and how could you make it look more new than by getting rid of Diane Abbott?”