Black Londoners “Really Hurt” By Diane Abbott Row

Labour's parliamentary candidate for Camberwell and Peckham, Miatta Fahnbulleh, has said voters in the area's Black community are “really hurt” by a row between Labour's leadership and Diane Abbott over whether she should be able to stand for the party in Hackney North and Stoke Newington.

Abbott was suspended from the Labour Party last year after writing that Jewish people, Irish people and Travellers do not face the same form of racism as Black people. She later withdrew her comments and apologised.

She was given the Labour whip back this week, but according to a briefing to The Times, Abbott would be barred from running as Hackney North and Stoke Newington’s Labour candidate in the general election, after representing the seat for 37 years, when she became the first Black MP. 

Labour leader Keir Starmer has since said that Abbott is free to stand for the seat, echoing deputy leader Angela Rayner's comments that she “doesn’t see any reason” why Abbott could not run.

Miatta Fahnbulleh, a senior economic adviser to Rayner and the Labour candidate for Camberwell and Peckham, where nearly half the local population identifies as Black, Black British, Caribbean or African has said “people are really hurt by this” in her community. 

“The reason they're hurt by it is because, whether you agree with her politics or not, whether she's got things right or not, she's a huge iconic figure, like Harriet Harman," she told PoliticsHome.  

Harman, who decided not to run for office at this general election, had represented Labour in Camberwell and Peckham since 1983 when very few women were MPs.

“[There’s] just so much affection because they were trailblazers," Fahnbulleh continued. "There's a whole generation of people where [Abbott] was part