Hackney Labour activists have joined the growing calls for solidarity with their local MP Diane Abbott. The Hackney North and Stoke Newington MP, who has received more abuse than any other parliamentarian, was the focus of a vicious attack by Tory donor Frank Hester in 2019, which has only recently come to light.

The Conservative party’s biggest donor told colleagues that looking at Diane Abbott makes you “want to hate all black women” and said the MP “should be shot”, the Guardian reported.

Now in a letter to the same newspaper, the local activists have responded, declaring their solidarity and calling for the Labour leadership to restore the whip to Diane Abbott, which was removed nearly a year ago.

“As local residents and previous officers in Hackney North & Stoke Newington Labour Party, we write in solidarity with our MP Diane Abbott,” they write. “The appalling racist and misogynist comments from tech boss and leading Tory donor Frank Hester reported by the Guardian were shocking, especially as they came after the murder of Jo Cox MP and two years before the brutal killing of the Tory MP Sir David Amess. But the vile remarks the Guardian reported were also sadly unsurprising. Hester’s alleged comments are yet another example and – by no means the most extreme – of the abuse Diane has endured over the past four decades in politics.

“The failure thus far of the Conservative Party to sever its links with Hester and to return the millions it has received from him suggests that Prime Minister Sunak’s supposed concern with ‘extremism’ is so much hypocritical cant. There is also a compelling case for an independent investigation into the award of lucrative NHS and other public sector contracts to Hester’s company.

“No politician’s record is perfect, but throughout her time as our MP Diane has been a champion of the most marginalised and of workers’ rights as NHS staff, Royal Mail workers, railworkers and teachers will all attest. We call on Sir Keir Starmer and the Labour Party’s leadership to offer her both their unequivocal public support and, nearly a year after her suspension, to reinstate Diane as a Labour MP with immediate effect.”

The signatories, in a personal capacity, include George Binette, Ex-Trade Union Liaison Officer, Cllr Soraya Adejare, Brownswood ward, ex-Vice-Chair, Membership, Cllr Fliss Premru, Clissold ward, Amanda Bentham, Ex-Vice-Chair, Membership (now ex-Labour Party), Thomas Glasman, Ex-Secretary, Mike Hart, Ex-Social Media Officer, Elizabeth Henton, Ex-Assistant Secretary, Kathryn Johnson, Ex-Policy Officer and Labour Group Observer,  Sue Millman, Ex-Chair, Margaret Renn, Ex-Secretary, Clisssold branch, Lucie J Scott, Ex-Vice-Chair, Campaigns and John Stewart, Ex-Representative Affiliated Trade Unions, all of Hackney North & Stoke Newington Labour Party.

A Momentum spokesperson said: “The sickening racism and sexism suffered by Diane Abbott – and the institutional racism and gaslighting of the Tory party in denying it – are, shamefully, nothing new. As confirmed by the Forde Report, Diane faced sickening racist abuse by right-wing Labour staffers – who faced no consequences. Meanwhile, the Starmer leadership has been conducting a sham ‘investigation’ into Diane for over a year, in a bid to force her out of Parliament. It is clear the Labour Party is complicit in the racist treatment of Diane. Restore the whip.”

Diane Abbott spoke out last September that the sham ‘investigation’ into her – then running for five months, now for eleven – was clearly unfair, and that she believed her identity as a black left wing woman contributed to that unfairness.

John McDonnell MP echoed former Labour minister Ed Balls in calling for the whip to be restored, as did Dawn Butler MP. Richard Leonard, the former leader of the Scottish Labour and Mish Rahman, Labour NEC member, have made the same call.

Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Diane_Abbot_MP,_Labour_Party_UK.jpg. Author: Sophie Brown, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.