THE sickening racist abuse directed at Diane Abbott by top Tory donor Frank Hester represents a challenge to the leaders of both the major political parties.
Hester, who has given the Conservative Party £10 million over the last year, told a meeting in 2019 that looking at the MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington made him “want to hate all black women” and added for good measure that Abbott “should be shot.”
Such remarks should be enough to immediately terminate anybody’s involvement in public life, and they may indeed constitute a criminal offence.
Hester was speaking, remember, just three years after a Labour MP, Jo Cox, was indeed shot to death by a far-right fanatic.
Everyone should first of all send their unqualified solidarity to Abbott, long the victim of more racist and misogynistic abuse than any other MP.
There are immediate questions for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. Will he keep Hester’s tainted money?
Perhaps even more importantly — does this racist outburst come within the compass of the “extremism” the premier has recently denounced, the fight against which he has placed at the centre of political debate?
His record on this is, to say the least, poor. He suspended former deputy chair of the Tories Lee Anderson, now Reform’s first MP, but was incapable of saying why.
Blatantly Islamophobic remarks by former home secretary Suella Braverman and apparent indulgence for far-right hooligan Tommy Robinson by ex-premier Liz Truss both got a pass.
So we are not holding our breath. Sunak is a weak leader, in thrall to the right wing of his party. It is unlikely he can summon up enough decency or courage to denounce Hester.
Should he not do so, then it becomes clearer than ever that his “anti-extremism” rhetoric is aimed exclusively at whipping up an anti-democratic frenzy against the left and the anti-war movement.
But Keir Starmer has to be put on the spot too. Hester’s rank comments directed at Abbott echo those of Labour staffers revealed in leaked Whatsapp messages.
Racism is a bipartisan problem. And it is reinforced by Starmer’s own treatment of Abbott.
She has been suspended from the Labour whip in Parliament for nearly a year now. Her offence was to write a newspaper letter suggesting Jewish people, among others, had not suffered from racism.
Her letter was clearly wrong and she immediately and fulsomely apologised for it. Since then her case has been “under investigation.”
Yet it is unclear what there is to investigate. There can be no possible reason for leaving her in political suspense for such a protracted period over what is a fairly straightforward issue.
The reason for this procrastination is obvious: because Abbott has spent her life on the left of the Labour Party, and served in senior roles under Jeremy Corbyn, he wants rid of her.
If she remains whipless when the next general election is called then she will be unable to stand as a Labour candidate, allowing some gormless Starmerite or other to be imposed on Hackney North.
Abbott is Britain’s first black woman MP, and its longest-serving black MP too. For her to be treated like this ought to be a source of national shame.
It is past time that the phoney “investigation” into her was terminated and the whip restored.
Starmer’s conduct towards her encourages attitudes like those of the reprehensible Hester. The Labour leader’s indifference towards racism directed at black people has long been a scandal. The labour movement should unite now to force him to do the right thing.
