Diane Abbott advised Jeremy Corbyn against founding new party, event told

Western Telegraph

10 hours ago

Ms Abbott, who served as Mr Corbyn's shadow home secretary when he was Labour leader, said she had spoken to him before its launch, and said it was not a good idea.
Speaking at an event at the Edinburgh Book Festival, the current longest-serving female MP said: 'There were people around Jeremy encouraging him to set up a new party, and I told him not to.
'It's very difficult under first-past-the-post system for a new party to absolutely win. If it wasn't first-past-the-post, then you can see how a new party could come through, but I understand why he did it.'
Ms Abbott said she thought the party, formed by her long-time friend Independent MP Mr Corbyn (Islington North) alongside Independent MP Zarah Sultana (Coventry South), would outperform people's expectations.
It was launched last month, but is still without a formal name. She said she believed it would take advantage of a broader discontent with politics in Britain.
Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and then-shadow home secretary Diane Abbott during a visit to Finsbury Park Mosque in 2019 (Victoria Jones/PA
She paid tribute to Mr Corbyn and Ms Sultana but said: 'At this point in time, it's difficult to see how a brand new party wins.
'However, I think Jeremy's party is going to do a lot better than people think because a lot of people who are not necessarily terribly left-wing people, are a tiny bit disappointed about the way we've gone in the past year.'
The MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington indicated her disappointment with the Labour Government.
She had the whip withdrawn for the second time in two years in July, after she expressed a lack of regret about comments to the Observer in 2023 that suggested that Jewish, Irish and Traveller people experience prejudice, but not racism.
However, she implied she would not join Mr Corbyn's party.
Ms Abbott said: 'It's a tricky state of play. I wouldn't have thought that you'd have a Labour Government and they'd be cutting winter fuel allowance for the elderly and benefits for the disabled.'
She was also critical of the Government's proscription of Palestine Action and labelled the decision 'a complete disgrace'.
Diane Abbott in 1986 when she was Hackney North and Stoke Newington Labour election candidate (PA)
'What they are seeking to do is proscribe protest as such,' she said. 'I mean, we all saw the pictures of the people in Trafalgar Square – 500 people? Half of them over 60. Come on, these are terrorists? I think this is an attempt to bear down on (protest).'
She added her more than 40 years in Labour meant it was too late to leave it. She was elected to Parliament in 1987, and was the only black female MP in the Commons for a decade until Labour's landslide under Tony Blair.
In response to a question about whether she thought she would ever be accepted 'at the heart' of the Labour Party, she replied: 'I think I am at the heart of the Labour Party, it's other people who aren't.'
Ms Abbott, whose book A Woman Like Me, was the subject of the interview in the Scottish capital by campaigner Talat Yaqoob, also told the audience of her anger at not being called by Commons speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle in the aftermath of racist comments by Conservative Party donor Frank Hester in 2024.
She said she had stood during a Prime Minister's Question session more than 40 times to be called to speak, after Sir Keir Starmer, Rishi Sunak and Sir Ed Davey had all spoken about the incident.
Mr Hester was reported to have said Ms Abbott made him want to 'hate all black women' and that she 'should be shot'.
The remarks brought widespread condemnation, including from Sir Keir, but she told the event her office was used to receiving racist abuse.
'I've been an MP for 38 years, and custom practice in the chamber is if you're being talked about, you get called. It's just a courtesy. I was so shocked that I wasn't called.
'But I heard later from someone who had reason to know, that what happened was that Rishi didn't want me called, because (Hester) was a Tory donor and it would look bad for them, and I'm afraid Keir Starmer didn't want me called because he wanted to milk the issue (for) political advantage, without mentioning me.'
She said Sir Keir had approached her after the questions session and asked what he could do to help.
'I said, 'Yes, you can restore the whip'. And as if he hadn't heard, he said, 'Is there anything I can do for you?' It was like he was deaf. And I said, 'Yes, you can restore the whip', and he realised I wasn't going to play that game and he went off.'