Diane Abbott

Diane Julie Abbott (born 27 September 1953) is a British Labour Party politician who served as Shadow Home Secretary from 2016 to 2020. She was first elected at the 1987 general election as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Hackney North and Stoke Newington. The first black woman to be a member of the House of Commons, she was suspended from Labour's parliamentary whip in April 2023 (after implying Jews have not experienced racism) and sat as an independent until the whip was restored in late May 2024. After the 2024 general election, she (informally) became Mother of the House, the longest continuously serving female MP.

1983

 * Ireland is our struggle. Every defeat of the British state is a victory for all of us. A defeat in Northern Ireland would be a defeat indeed
 * Comment from c. 1983 quoted on The Andrew Marr Show (28 May 2017), as cited in "Diane Abbott refuses to say she 'regrets' calling for IRA to defeat British state", The Independent (28 May 2017).

1985

 * You have to start from an understanding that all white people are racist.
 * Interview in Socialist Action, 15 November 1985, page 5

1994

 * Being an MP is the sort of job all working-class parents want for their children — clean, indoors and no heavy lifting.
 * The Independent (18 January 1994).

1996

 * I am surprised that they chose to bring in blonde, blue-eyed girls from Finland, instead of nurses from the Caribbean who know the language and understand British culture and institutions. [...] Are Finnish girls, who may never have met a black person before, let alone touched one, best suited to nurse in multicultural Hackney?
 * On the recruitment of Finnish nurses in Britain from an article in the Hackney Gazette, as cited in "Abbott denies attack on nurses was racist", The Herald (Glasgow, 28 November 1996)
 * Hackney's Homerton Hospital, in Abbott's constituency, was experiencing staff shortages.

2010–2015

 * I think the public sector cuts have the potential to set back race relations and black and ethnic minority communities by a generation.
 * "Cuts could damage race relations, warns Diane Abbott" BBC News (14 September 2010).


 * White people love playing ‘divide & rule’. We should not play their game.
 * Twitter post reproduced in The Daily Telegraph (5 January 2012).


 * I put being a mother ahead of being a politician.
 * "Profile: Diane Abbott" BBC News (5 January 2012).


 * Of course, sex is great. We don't have to pretend otherwise. But people shouldn't feel victimised by a pornified culture and girls shouldn't be forced to do things they don't feel comfortable with.
 * "Diane Abbott: British culture 'increasingly pornified'" BBC News (22 January 2013).


 * There is a crisis of masculinity in Britain because of the pressures rapid economic and social change have placed on masculine identity. A generation of men are in transit and unclear of their social role. They are also under pressure to live up to pornified ideals.
 * "Diane Abbott to warn of British 'masculinity crisis'" BBC News (15 May 2013).


 * If you want people to participate and be interested, part of that is to have a political class that looks like the population as a whole.
 * "Diane Abbott in Jersey for Women in Politics talk" BBC News (1 July 2014).


 * On balance Mao did more good than harm.
 * On BBC One's This Week during a debate over who was the history's worst dictator. (27 November 2015).

2016

 * When I had been at primary school, I was very good at writing essays. It was a big thing. My essays were so good they would get pinned up on the wall and read out to the rest of the class
 * "Diane Abbott: My struggles and triumphs" BBC News (2 December 2016).


 * I want power. I suppose that's the story of my life - seeking power.
 * "Diane Abbott: My struggles and triumphs" BBC News (2 December 2016).


 * I'm in politics to be a voice for people who don't have a voice.
 * "Diane Abbott: My struggles and triumphs" BBC News (2 December 2016).


 * There's no question women politicians get a level of abuse online which men don't get. New media and the anonymity has unleashed a really quite violent misogyny which I didn't see when I started in politics, although consistently women always get more severe abuse in the media than men.
 * "Diane Abbott: My struggles and triumphs" BBC News (2 December 2016).

2017

 * I respect the result of the referendum and no-one wanted to thwart it in a perverse kind of way. But we need to be clear, this is not a Tony Benn Brexit, this is Donald Trump Brexit, and it's got a very ugly side.
 * "No 10 plays down House of Lords abolition warning over Brexit" BBC News (9 February 2017).


 * I receive racist and sexist abuse online on a daily basis. I have had rape threats, death threats, and am referred to routinely as a bitch and/or nigger, and am sent horrible images on Twitter
 * "Female MP abuse 'puts women off politics' says Diane Abbott" BBC News (15 February 2017).


 * Sexism towards female MPs is sadly still commonplace
 * "Female MP abuse 'puts women off politics' says Diane Abbott" BBC News (15 February 2017).


 * I do know my figures
 * "Diane Abbott says she 'misspoke' on Labour's police policy" BBC News (2 May 2017).


 * I think politicians complaining about the media is like sailors complaining about the weather.
 * Diane Abbott: "'I'm back to fighting fitness'" BBC News (20 June 2017).


 * I think that's what we were referencing when we talked about easy movement [of workers after the UK has left the EU's single market] - less bureaucracy; it's good for migrants but it's also good for business
 * "Diane Abbott: Listen to CBI and NHS' on Brexit migration" BBC News (17 December 2017).


 * The health service, they're very worried about a collapse in the number of EU migrants coming here. Social care would be in a terrible position.... finance, education. The reality is that business, the CBI, the Institute of Directors, but also health, education and social care; they say that they need these European migrants and we have to listen to them.
 * "Diane Abbott: Listen to CBI and NHS' on Brexit migration" BBC News (17 December 2017).


 * I will argue for the right of the electorate to vote on any deal that is finally agreed.
 * "Diane Abbott: Listen to CBI and NHS' on Brexit migration" BBC News (17 December 2017).


 * The Labour Party doesn't support a second referendum
 * "Diane Abbott: Listen to CBI and NHS' on Brexit migration" BBC News (17 December 2017).

2018

 * We don't want to see the break-up of families from the EU in the way we currently do for non-EU families.
 * "Labour vows to end 'heartbreaking' deportation rules" BBC News (21 February 2018).


 * In a global world, we need migration and migrants. They should not be subjected to a hostile environment.
 * "Labour vows to end 'heartbreaking' deportation rules" BBC News (21 February 2018).


 * The disproportionate use of force is clearly discriminatory. This is not a recipe for good police-community relations.
 * "Met Police 'use force more often' against black people" BBC News (24 May 2018).


 * Migrants from outside the EU should be treated with the same fairness as EU migrants after Brexit.
 * "Diane Abbott unveils Labour's new immigration policy" BBC News (13 September 2018).


 * The referendum vote will be honoured and we will come out of the EU next spring
 * "Brexit vote will be honoured, says Diane Abbott" BBC News (23 November 2018).


 * [We will table an amendment to reject the deal and] prevent the chaos of the UK crashing out of the EU
 * "Brexit: Security minister Ben Wallace warns of no-deal risk" BBC News (29 November 2018).

2019

 * I hope ex-members will continue to work with Labour on issues like homelessness, the benefit system, the NHS and most of all fighting this Tory Brexit
 * "Labour and Conservatives could see more MP exits" BBC News (21 February 2019).


 * The British people and British workers are paying a big price for chaotic Brexit
 * "Diane Abbott joins fight to save Honda car plant" BBC News (23 March 2019).


 * Another vote would be the democratic thing to do to move Brexit forward.
 * "Brexit: Labour still split over further referendum" BBC News (28 May 2019).


 * [Remaining in the EU would be the] best option for the country and my constituents
 * "Jeremy Corbyn refuses to echo allies' Brexit position" BBC News (20 August 2019).

Quotes about Abbott

 * To counter her argument that the "prejudice" experienced by Irish, Jewish and Traveller people is not a patch on the "racism" suffered by black people, I cannot improve on the letter from someone whose family left a city in Poland where more than 99% of Jews were exterminated for their race and whose experiences of British antisemitism includes having Nazi insignia brandished in their face. As the anonymous writer says: "To compare those experiences to the struggles of redheads is incomprehensible." Quite.
 * Compare the blond Etonian [Boris Johnson] to Britain’s first black woman MP, and you see how racist and sexist 21st-century century Britain remains. No matter how great the sin, how brazen the deceit, how lethally complacent the politician, he gets to come back again and again, and fills his pockets while doing so. Abbott can't even enjoy an M&S mojito on the tube without it becoming a major scandal. She has faced racial bullying – including from within her own party – that would have broken others. Little of that is remembered, and none of it helps.
 * Aditya Chakrabortty "The lesson from the Diane Abbott row: if we fight racism in silos, we just can't win" The Guardian (27 April 2023)
 * Diane Abbott was suspended from the Labour Party's parliamentary whip a few days earlier for comments in a letter sent to The Observer (of London) claiming "Irish, Jewish and Traveller people" suffer prejudice rather than racism. In a tweet, she later commented: "[I] wholly and unreservedly withdraw my remarks and dissassociate myself from them".


 * Thanks Diane. I hope we can all agree that this debate should be about Syria not UK party politics
 * Jo Cox, response on Twitter to Abbott after she called Jo Cox and John Woodcock "sad" for backing military action against the wishes of Jeremy Corbyn, as cited in "Furious Labour MPs accuse Diane Abbott of 'bullying' over Syria vote" The Telegraph (11 October 2015).


 * You're shadow international development secretary not an internet troll.
 * John Woodcock, response in Twitter to Abbott after she called Jo Cox and John Woodcock 'sad' for backing military action against the wishes of Jeremy Corbyn, as cited in "Furious Labour MPs accuse Diane Abbott of 'bullying' over Syria vote" The Telegraph (11 October 2015).