UK's first Black female lawmaker says barred from running as Labour MP

By Mehmet Solmaz

BIRMINGHAM, England (AA) — British lawmaker Diane Abbott – the first Black woman to be elected to the parliament – on Wednesday said the Labour Party barred her from running for the general elections on July 4.

Abbott, who has actively been elected a member of the parliament since the 1987 election, issued a statement to broadcasters confirming she had been handed back the Labour whip, but would not be allowed to stand again as a candidate.

Labour withdrew the whip from Abbott in April 2023, after she suggested Jewish, Irish and Traveller people experienced prejudice, but not racism. Since then, she was investigated for her words which she later withdrew.

The veteran MP’s suspension from the party came after she responded to an Observer article titled: ‘Racism in Britain is not a Black and white issue. It’s far more complicated.’

She wrote in the letter: “It is true that many types of white people with points of difference, such as redheads, can experience this prejudice. But they are not all their lives subject to racism. In pre-civil rights America, Irish people, Jewish people and Travellers were not required to sit at the back of the bus.”

Abbott later said she wished to “wholly and unreservedly withdraw my remarks and disassociate myself from them.”