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The Labour Left Podcast Interview: Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP

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In the latest edition of the Labour Left Podcast Bryn Griffiths of Labour Hub talks to Bell Ribeiro-Addy of the Socialist Campaign Group about fighting racism within Parliament.

Bell entered Parliament in 2019 as the Corbyn period drew to a close within the Labour Party.  She entered the Parliamentary Labour Party alongside numerous other new excellent socialists such as Nadia Whittome, Apsana Begum, Kim Johnson and Ian Byrne.

Before becoming an MP in her own right, she was the Chief of Staff to Diane Abbott, Britain’s first Black MP and the Mother of the House.  She cut her political teeth as the Black Student’s Officer of the National Union of Students (NUS) fighting racism and seeking to implement the NUS policy of no platform for fascists. 

What marks Bell out is that she was part of a parliamentary socialist intake as the Corbyn leadership period drew to a close.  She entered the Parliamentary Labour Party as a socialist with a clear commitment to joining the Socialist Campaign Group and a personal identification with the fight for Black representation led by the Labour Party Black Sections in the 1980s.  In the podcast we hear about how Bell used her Maiden Speech within Parliament to say: “Let’s address the historic injustices of the British Empire.” 

On 5th September 2025, when Angela Rayner resigned, she became the left’s candidate for the Deputy Leadership of the Labour Party. When Rayner stood down, both Momentum and the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy (CLPD) were keen that the socialist wing of the party stood a candidate, so both organisations were delighted when the Campaign Group announced Bell Ribeiro Addy as our candidate. 

In a previous Labour Left Podcast John McDonnell MP described the Deputy Leadership contest as a “stitch-up” and one of the features of that “stitch-up” was a procedure where the MPs had only three days to consider who would appear on the ballot that Labour members were to receive.  Given that Bell had only three days to campaign it was a considerable achievement that she began to set the agenda on issues such as why we should not seek to ‘out-Reform Reform’, Gaza, welfare policy and the need to reintroduce democracy back into the Labour Party.  Given the resonance Bell’s ideas received in those three short days, it is very clear why the right-wing of the Parliamentary Labour Party were so determined to ensure that Labour members did not get a real political choice.

After the short campaign, both the CLPD and Momentum were full of praise for the agenda-setting impact made by Bell.  Both organisations are keen to help to raise her profile and this episode of the Labour Left Podcast is Labour Hub’s contribution to that task.  Please share Bell’s compelling interview so we can continue to raise her profile.  During the course of the interview Bell says she is very happy to speak at Constituency Labour Party events so please consider whether she could be invited as a guest speaker to your local party.  You can invite her by mailing  bell.ribeiroaddy.mp@parliament.uk 

I hope you enjoy Bell’s compelling story.

If you’re new to the Labour Left Podcast, please take a good look at our back catalogue as nearly all the episodes were designed to be timeless contributions to debates on the left. 

The last episode was with author Mark Perryman where we discussed his book The Starmer Symptom; previous episodes have included John McDonnell MP of the Socialist Campaign Group where we explored the ideas behind his decades of Labour Left activity;  socialist feminist Lynne Segal of Beyond the Fragments looked back at her hugely impressive history of activism; a recent episode interviewed Bell’s comrade Richard Burgon of the Socialist Campaign Group; previous episodes have looked at the fight for a United Ireland with historian Geoff Bell; a conversation with Compass’s Neal Lawson; Rachel Shabi talking about her book The Truth About Antisemitism;  Bernard Regan of the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign;  Prof Harvey J Kaye on the legacy of the Communist Historians; Prof Corinne Fowler, talking about her book Our Island Stories: Country Walks Through Colonial Britain; Andrew Fisher telling the story behind For the Many Not the Few, Labour’s 2017 manifesto; Jeremy Gilbert, a Prof of Cultural and Political Theory, a champion of Gramsci, talking about Thatcherism; episodes with Mish Rahman, Rachel Godfrey Wood and Hilary Schan on the contemporary Labour Left; Mike Phipps, author of Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow, taking a long-term look at the Labour Left;  Mike Jackson, co-founder of Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners, on the Great 1984-85 Miners’ Strike; political activist Liz Davies telling her story as the dissenter within Blair’s New Labour; Rachel Garnham, a current co-Chair of the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy looking back at the history of the fight for democracy in the British Labour Party; and finally myself telling the story of Brighton Labour Briefing, a local Bennite magazine in the 1980s.

You can watch the podcast on YouTube, Apple Podcasts here, Audible here, Substack here and listen to it on Spotify here.  You can even ask Alexa to play the Labour Left Podcast. If your favourite podcast site isn’t listed, just search for the Labour Left Podcast. 

Bryn Griffiths is an activist in Colchester Labour Party and North Essex World Transformed. He is the Vice-Chair of Momentum and sits on the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy’s Executive. 

Bryn hosts Labour Hub’s spin off – the Labour Left Podcast.  You can find all the episodes of the podcast here  or if you prefer audio platforms (for example Amazon, Audible, Spotify, Apple etc,) go to your favourite podcast provider and just search for the Labour Left Podcast.