The veteran MP storms back into Labour just days after Burnham takes power
Diane Abbott has been readmitted to the Labour Party, days after Andy Burnham became leader. The Hackney North and Stoke Newington MP had sat as an independent since losing the whip last year.
Labour announced the decision on Thursday night, according to BBC News. The party insisted the readmission had nothing to do with the change of leader. It said the decision followed ‘a process conducted under Labour Party rules and approved by the independent review board’.
A formal warning and an apology
Abbott received a formal warning for a post on X in which she referred to the Israeli Defense Forces as the ‘Jewish Defence Force’.
In a statement on Thursday night, she apologised. She said: ‘By inadvertently referring to the Israeli Defence Force as the “Jewish Defence Force”, I used wording that conflates the actions of the state of Israel with the Jewish community. I am deeply sorry for any hurt caused by that conflation.’
She added that she has been ‘a lifelong anti-racist’ and remains ‘deeply committed to ending racism in all its forms’. Louise Haigh, the First Secretary of State, welcomed the decision. She told BBC Breakfast that what Abbott said last year was ‘completely unacceptable’, but added: ‘She’s made an apology, and I think that’s right.’ Haigh called Abbott ‘a trailblazer, the first black woman elected to Parliament’ and said she is ‘Labour to her bones’.
Reid returns while her husband’s spying case continues
Labour MP Joani Reid was readmitted on the same evening, STV News reported. Reid voluntarily suspended herself in March after her husband, David Taylor, was arrested on suspicion of spying for China, according to BBC News. He was one of three men arrested on suspicion of assisting a foreign intelligence service.
Taylor was bailed and no charges have been brought as of 2 August. The Guardian reported that Reid received a £2,400 donation from his firm, Earthcott Ltd, in February for media training. She has said she had no involvement in his business activities.
Burnham brings the left into government
The readmissions fit a wider pattern. Last week Burnham appointed three members of the Socialist Campaign Group as ministerial aides: Olivia Blake, Mary Kelly Foy, and Steve Witherden, according to Left Foot Forward. It is the first time members of the group have entered government under a Labour prime minister.
Abbott is herself a member of the Socialist Campaign Group. She ran against Burnham for the Labour leadership in 2010. During his leadership campaign, Burnham promised to end ‘factionalism’ and not use party discipline to ‘stifle debate’. His predecessor repeatedly withdrew the whip from rebellious MPs. Four left-wing Labour MPs suspended last year have since been readmitted.
She was readmitted in May 2024, shortly before the general election, then suspended again after defending the remarks in a BBC interview.
John McDonnell, shadow chancellor under Jeremy Corbyn, had publicly called on Burnham to restore the whip to Abbott, saying it would be ‘a first step’ towards ‘a broad church’.
Abbott was first suspended in 2023 over a letter to the Observer. She wrote that Jewish, Irish, and Traveller people ‘undoubtedly experience prejudice’ but ’they are not all their lives subject to racism’, and likened their treatment to that faced by redheads. She was readmitted in May 2024, shortly before the general election, then suspended again after defending the remarks in a BBC interview.
Abbott, elected in 1987 and now Mother of the House as the longest-serving female MP, sits once more as a Labour MP.
