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Diane Abbott can stand for Labour at the July 4 general election, Sir Keir Starmer has said in a bid to end a row over an alleged purge of leftwing candidates that has overshadowed the start of his election campaign.
The Labour leader made the announcement on Friday just hours after insisting at an event in Scotland that “no decision has been taken to bar her from standing” and that the party’s national executive committee would “come to a decision in due course”.
He later told reporters: “The whip has obviously been restored to her now and she is free to go forward as a Labour candidate.”
Starmer praised the Labour veteran, who became Britain’s first female Black MP when she was elected in 1987, as a “trailblazer” who had “carved a path for other people to come into politics and public life”.
Abbott was suspended from the Parliamentary Labour party last year after suggesting Jewish, Irish and Traveller people only experienced “prejudice” rather than racism. She had been sitting as an independent MP since the remarks until the Labour whip was restored earlier this week.
Earlier this week Abbott accused Labour of wanting to “exclude” her and said she had been barred from standing.
Starmer’s intervention came after the Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar joined Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner in stating publicly that Abbott should be allowed to run as the party’s candidate in her Hackney North and Stoke Newington seat.
A Labour official said Abbott would be the Labour candidate in her London constituency and Labour’s NEC, its ruling body, is expected to support her candidacy.
This is a developing story