LONG-standing Labour MP Diane Abbott accused the right wing Labour leadership, led by Keir Starmer, of carrying out a ‘cull of left wingers’ in a crisis that emerged on Wednesday with leaked news that she was to be banned from standing in Hackney North and Stoke Newington in the general election.
Abbott was elected to serve this constituency in 1987 and became the first female black MP in the UK.
Over 36 years as a stalwart Labour Party MP counts for nothing in Starmer’s new ‘changed’ Labour – changed with only one aim, that is, to prove to the ruling class that a future Labour government will be prepared to carry out a war to the finish against the working class.
Starmer is using every dirty trick in the book to cull MPs and local Labour Party representatives. He is conducting a war to drive out anyone who refuses to fall in line with his slavish support for capitalism.
Labour Party councillors have been suspended over the past years, and entire Labour Party branches closed down in a witch hunt against anyone who doesn’t parrot the Starmer line of placing the interests of the bosses and bankers before the interests of workers.
The main accusation levelled at those Starmer wishes to cull is the allegation of anti-Semitism. This was used to remove the whip from former leader Jeremy Corbyn and block him from standing as a Labour candidate.
The same accusation of anti-Semitism was used on Abbott which led to her suspension from the Party back in April 2023. She was deliberately left dangling in the wind while the Starmer-dominated Labour Party Executive Committee carried out an ‘investigation’ into an alleged anti-Semitic article.
This committee concluded its investigation last December and presumably recommended that the whip be restored to Abbott.
Despite this, Starmer, when questioned last week, insisted that the investigation into Abbott was still ongoing. In fact, she was only restored as a Labour MP on Tuesday this week.
According to press reports, the plan hatched was to restore the whip to Abbott in expectation that she would gracefully stand down at the election and retire with the fulsome praise from Starmer for her record ringing in her ears.
If that was the plan it was deliberately derailed by members of the close knit group of right-wing spivs who surround Starmer, who are determined to prove their ruthless drive to become the party of the bosses and bankers.
One of them leaked to the press that, far from being permitted to resign with dignity, Abbott would be blocked from standing.
It forced out into the open all the vicious manoeuvres by Starmer’s gang to cull and crush all opposition in the Labour Party to his ‘pro-business’ policies and especially anyone who supports Palestine and opposes Zionist genocide.
Abbott, throughout her Parliamentary life, has been a vocal supporter of Palestine, with a record of opposing the illegal war, waged by Tony Blair’s New Labour government in Iraq.
This has caused a huge crisis for the Labour leadership,who would much prefer their cull to be carried out away from the public view.
General Secretaries of six trade unions affiliated to the Labour Party – Aslef, TSSA, Unite, NUM, CWU and the FBU – all wrote to Starmer demanding Abbott be ‘confirmed’ as a candidate.
No one should believe a word from Starmer about there being no cull taking place of MPs who stand by Palestine and support workers’ rights.
This is the man who welcomed with open arms into the Labour Party the extreme right-wing Tory MP Natalie Elphicke when she defected to Labour earlier this month. Elphicke was welcomed as ‘a good natural fit’ to the Party by Labour Party chair Anneliese Dodds.
An extreme right-wing Tory fits right in to a party that Starmer is transforming into a potential right-wing regime, which is prepared to do the dirty work for British capitalism by making the working class pay for the economic crisis through massive austerity cuts to pay and jobs.
The way forward for workers and youth who are turning away from this bankrupt and reactionary Labour Party is to join the WRP and the Young Socialists to organise and lead the British Socialist Revolution to victory, that is, the taking of power by the working class and putting an end to capitalism for good!
