Keir Starmer has all the ballots – or at least enough – to win the next general election in the United Kingdom, but his race to number 10 Downing Street will not be without obstacles. Even within his own party. The first Labor controversy since the electoral advance was carried out by one of his colleagues, Diane Abbott, who this Wednesday accused the party of having vetoed her from the lists for July 4. Their leader has denied it. “I am very dejected,” she insisted, a parliamentarian for almost four decades for the London neighborhood of Hackney and Stoke Newington, aware of the echo that her words usually have.
Abbott is not just another member of the Labor Party. A member of the party since 1971, and very close to her former boss, Jeremy Corbyn, she is the first black woman to sit in the House of Commons and is currently the oldest MP. In the 37 years that she has been in her seat – she is 70 – she has not been shy when it comes to speaking out on the thorniest issues. From the IRA, for which she showed her support, to same-sex marriage, for which she campaigned, or to Brexit, with her resounding rejection. She also went on to say that Britain “is without a doubt the most racist country on the face of the Earth.” And it was precisely a xenophobic comment that made the group remove her from the political front line a year ago: “Jews, Irish and gypsies have not been subjected to the same discrimination as blacks, they were never forced to go on the behind the buses.
Abbott’s statements in a letter in the newspaper ‘The Observer’ outraged Starmer, who has been trying to place the party at the ideological center since he assumed its leadership and who even then, with Rishi Sunak in free fall, knew that he was the favorite for become new prime minister. Perhaps that is why he did not hesitate to leave the veteran politician without charges within the formation for being racist and anti-Semitic and decided to open an investigation into the matter, the conclusions of which are unknown. She apologized, took back her words, denounced the hatred received on social networks for her comment… Not long ago she regained her position as coordinator of the parliamentary group. «Thank you to everyone who has supported me on this path. “I will campaign for Labor victory,” she proclaimed after her return.
Starmer denies it
But this daughter of Jamaican immigrants, the first in her family to go to university and a graduate in History from Cambridge, does not seem to be going to find a place on the Labor lists for July 4. Or at least that’s what she maintains. “I am prohibited from running as a candidate,” Abbott said on the BBC. The leader of the party that seems to put an end to the conservative era in the United Kingdom was quick to deny it and defended that “no decision has been made” to veto it. The controversy, however, is served in the first week of the campaign and some parliamentarians to the left of Starmer have taken advantage of it to accuse their boss of “cleaning” the party at her whim.
Abbott does not usually shy away from the thorniest issues. He supported the IRA, defended same-sex marriage and campaigned against Brexit
In the Labor ranks there are those who miss Corbyn, their leader until 2020 and, according to the British media, more than just an ideological companion of Abbott. Starmer’s predecessor was singled out at the time, precisely, for allowing anti-Semitism to spread within the formation.
#British #Labor #vetoes #black #racist #comments #Basque #Journal