Diane Abbott will be reselected to fight her seat at a meeting of the Labour party’s executive on Tuesday despite having suggested on social media that Keir Starmer was a liar, the Guardian understands.
Abbott will be on the list of candidates picked to fight the general election that is rubber-stamped by the national executive committee (NEC), sources said.
Starmer said last week that Abbott was “free to stand” as a Labour candidate, after days of speculation that she could be blocked.
Abbott said on Sunday that she intended to “run and win” for Labour in Hackney North and Stoke Newington, and denied a report that she had been offered a seat in the House of Lords if she agreed to stand aside in the constituency she has represented for 37 years.
She then apparently tweeted a link to an article by the Starmer biographer Tom Baldwin headlined “Starmer on Abbott: ‘I’ve actually got more respect for Diane than she probably realises’”, with the words: “More lies from Starmer”. She deleted the post shortly afterwards.
Labour officials confirmed they would in effect ignore the post and press ahead with her reselection on Tuesday. A party source said: “It will hopefully be a very short and uneventful NEC meeting. We need to put this behind us.”
Senior Labour figures are concerned that the row over Abbott, and what critics have described as a purge of leftwing candidates, has the potential to undermine the party’s message that it has changed since the days of factional infighting under Jeremy Corbyn.
Labour has attacked the Conservatives over what it calls the last few years of chaos and division and has suggested that a Starmer-led government would be more focused on delivering in the interests of the public.
“Keir has said that Diane is free to stand and that’s that,” said one party insider. “We want to get through the NEC meeting and concentrate on the stuff that voters really care about. Suggestions of internal splits don’t help with that.”
The Guardian understands that Apsana Begum is also on the list of party candidates to be nodded through by the NEC despite speculation that she could be blocked.
Local party sources in her constituency of Poplar and Limehouse in east London suggested there had been conversations about whether to parachute in another candidate.
Labour headquarters is understood to have been been concerned about the fallout if they deselected another minority ethnic woman.
A letter from more than 50 local members to Starmer, the Labour general secretary, David Evans, and the NEC on Monday, called on them to replace Begum, who had faced a re-selection process in her seat in 2022, “triggered” by members in every ward, that did not ultimately go ahead.
Labour had faced calls to stop the process after Begum revealed she had been signed off sick from work and had suffered what she described as a “sustained campaign of misogynistic abuse”.
The letter, seen by the Guardian, said: “As the 2024 general election approaches, it is crucial for the Labour party to field candidates who embody integrity, transparency, and unwavering commitment to their constituents.
“Unfortunately, recent events and past controversies surrounding Apsana Begum … raise significant concerns about her suitability as the Labour candidate for this pivotal election. We local members put in a formal complaint today about Apsana Begum and we ask that she be replaced by a local candidate with demonstrable integrity.”
Jim Fitzpatrick, Labour MP for the seat until the 2019 election, said: “At any other time I would expect [Begum] to have been removed by the NEC. I think at present, however, there is a real risk that the local party view will be ignored. This would be disappointing, but I hope I’m wrong.”
A spokesperson for Begum, whose supporters sent a letter of their own to the NEC on Monday, said: “This is a last-minute desperate push seeking to smear the first hijab wearing MP and a survivor of domestic abuse. Apsana is a popular and well-respected representative and has supported constituents relentlessly.”
