Calls grow for new PM Andy Burnham to reinstate MP Diane Abbott into Labour Party
Diane Abbott was suspended last year after she said there was a difference 'between racism about colour and other types of racism.'
Calls grow for new PM Andy Burnham to reinstate MP Diane Abbott into Labour Party
Diane Abbott who was the first Black woman to be elected into parliament has been suspended twice after expressing her views on racism.
STORY BY MELISSA SIGODO
JULY 21, 2026
A petition for MP Diane Abbott to be reinstated into the Labour Party a year after she was suspended has reached over 35,000 signatures.
The MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington was suspended from the party for a second time over comments made in a BBC interview where she said there was a “difference between racism which is about colour” and “other types of racism because you can see a Traveller or a Jewish person walking down the street, you don’t know.”
Following the interview, then Prime Minister Keir Starmer who resigned yesterday just two years after he was elected - suspended the longstanding MP who was the first Black woman to be elected into parliament.
Now, with Andy Burham becoming the latest prime minister of the UK, a petition organised by Arise Festival Volunteers and sponsored by Labour Assembly Against Austerity is calling for him to reinstate her.
In an article featured on Labour Hub, John McDonnell MP for Hayes and Harlington said:
“Andy Burnham says he aims to change the culture of the Labour Party and return the party to a broad church – a pluralist party where people’s views are respected. A first step would be to restore the Labour whip to Diane Abbott.”
Speaking on behalf of the petition organisers, Matt Willgress added: “We will keep speaking up for Diane Abbott to be reinstated and stand with Diane in all her campaigning for equality, social justice and peace.”
Abbott was first suspended from Labour in April 2023 after she wrote in a letter to the Observer newspaper that Irish, Jewish and Traveller people "undoubtedly experience prejudice" but that they were “not all their lives subject to racism.”
Labour labelled her comments “deeply offensive and wrong” while the Board of Deputies of British Jews slammed the letter calling it “disgraceful” and wrote to Starmer demanding for the whip to be removed from the MP.
Then Tory Energy Secretary Grant Shapps accused the MP of antisemitism writing on Twitter that, "Once again, Jewish people have to wake up and see a Labour MP casually spouting hateful anti-semitism.”
Following an apology from Abbott and an investigation by Labour, she was was then readmitted into the party in May 2024, a year later.
But the MP who has represented Hackney North and Stoke Newington since 1987 and is the longest continuously serving female Labour MP which earned her the title Mother of the House - has faced a torrent of racist abuse in her years as an MP.
A 2022 report by Amnesty International which analysed tweets aimed at women MPs in the run up to the 2017 general election found that she experienced the most abuse which was “incredibly disproportionate” and that she was the target of almost a third (31.61%) of all abusive tweets analysed.
The vitriol aimed at Abbott focused on her gender and race, and included threats of sexual violence.
In 2024, the Guardian revealed that the Conservative Party’s biggest donor Frank Hester told colleagues that looking at Diane Abbott makes you “want to hate all black women” and that she “should be shot.”
In a statement later released by the businessman on social media, it stated that Frank Hester ‘accepted’ that he was “rude about Diane Abbott in a private meeting several years ago” but his criticism “had nothing to do with her gender nor colour of skin.”
Speaking at the time, Abbott told BBC Newsnight that she had expected “more support” from her party stating that Starmer had not reached out to her personally after Hester’s comments were revealed.
Now, with Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s plans to change ‘the culture of the Labour Party’, thousands have signed the petition backing the veteran MP and calling for her suspension to be lifted.
For more information about the petition, click here.
The Labour Party has been contacted for comment.