UK
Diane Abbott: She’s Walked the Line
By George Binette
In contrast to all too many members of the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP), Diane Abbott has visited a fair few picket lines in her 38 years as the MP for Hackney North & Stoke Newington. That might explain why several unions were keen to contribute to her re-election campaign last year after the Labour leadership finally re-admitted her to the PLP in late May 2024.
In total, Diane’s campaign received £9,000 from three Labour affiliates – the CWU, FBU and Unite – and £5,000 from what is arguably Britain’s most militant major union, the RMT, which found itself expelled from Labour more than two decades ago. There was never any real doubt that Diane would retain her seat last July, though her protracted suspension from the PLP and the party leadership’s support for Israel’s merciless war on Gaza did erode her previously thumping majority. The unions that contributed to her campaign did so in recognition of the role she had played both at Westminster and in showing solidarity publicly for workers fighting back.
During my six-and-a-half-year stint as her local party’s Trade Union Liaison Officer, I frequently called on Diane to send messages of support and visit picket lines. She invariably responded. In June and early July lecturers belonging to the NEU stood outside Hackney’s BSix college. Though Diane was ultimately unable to make a picketing session, her message of support received a warm welcome, not least because she had joined these NEU members when they had walked out in previous disputes, not least during her time as Shadow Home Secretary.
A week before the General Election, when many Labour candidates would have found alternative routes to avoid a picket line, the candidate for Hackney North & Stoke Newington joined Unite members battling for union recognition at the Sanctuary housing association, which now manages some 980 flats on the borough’s Kingsmead estate.
Within the hour, Diane was standing at the entrance to the nearby Homerton Hospital with BMA members striking as part of their long-running pay dispute with the then Tory government, where she also met with angry women, several of them UNISON members, working on an outsourced contract with the Danish-based multinational ISS. These workers, cleaners and catering staff, had worked throughout the Covid pandemic and yet had not received the so-called Covid bonus of at least £1,655 awarded to all directly employed NHS staff.
In June 2022 Diane addressed a lively RMT-organised rally at the start of the mini-strike wave that both reflected and accelerated the collapse in support for the Tory government. Less than a month later, she twice joined striking RMT members from London Underground on blazing hot mornings outside the Seven Sisters depot in neighbouring Haringey. They were defending their Transport for London pension scheme in an ultimately successful battle.
Before the year was out, she appeared next to CWU members at Stamford Hill’s Royal Mail delivery office in quite different weather conditions – one reason she received a rapturous reception from posties at a December 2022 strike benefit her CLP organised. Just under a year later she addressed a rally outside Amazon’s London headquarters midst frigid temperatures in solidarity with GMB members in Coventry striking in pursuit of union recognition.
In short, Diane Abbott has proved herself a consistent friend of workers in struggle over many years, which just might be another factor explaining why she is not welcome in Keir Starmer’s PLP.
- George Binette is a former secretary of Camden UNISON and the former Trade Union Liaison Officer for Hackney North & Stoke Newington CLP between autumn 2017 and spring 2024.
- You can add your name to a petition in support of Diane Abbott here.
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