Facts
Under scrutiny over whether he would allow Diane Abbott to stand as a Labour candidate in the 2024 general election, Keir Starmer repeatedly insisted the matter was out of his hands. Pressed on BBC Radio 4 on whether he wanted Abbott to be a Labour candidate, he replied: “It’s not a question of my want. The days when the Leader of the Labour Party rolls up his or her sleeves and gets involved in disciplinary cases are well and truly over. That’s what Jeremy Corbyn did and it ended very badly. It’s a matter for the National Executive Committee now on the question of candidates and that deadline now is 4th of June or thereabouts.”
Starmer’s answer conflated two separate processes: the Labour Party’s disciplinary investigation of Abbott, and the National Executive Committee’s (NEC) endorsement of Labour candidates for the general election. Both gave the impression Starmer was not responsible for the decision, and he appears to have been untroubled by the conflation as he often spoke vaguely, as in another BBC interview on the same day, of “party processes.”
Starmer failed to disclose that Abbott’s disciplinary investigation had completed five months earlier, and the only remaining obstacle to her sitting again as a Labour MP was his own decision on whether to restore the whip. This prompted Abbott, who could not speak openly about the details of her case due to Labour Party rules, to post on X rejecting the idea Starmer had no say on the matter, asserting “It has EVERYTHING to do with him.”
Starmer’s second assertion—that the question of whether Abbott would be endorsed as a Labour candidate was “a matter for the National Executive Committee,” which he repeated to the media on 28 May and 29 May—was disproved by Starmer himself. Bowing to pressure on 31 May, he said: “She’s free to go forward as a Labour candidate, the whip is back with her, it has been restored… Formally, a matter for the NEC but I’ve not expressed a view up until now, she’s free to go forward as a Labour candidate.” The idea that decisions of the NEC were independent from Starmer, who was a member of the body and whose supporters held a majority on it, was never plausible, but his subsequent words confirmed that his own “view” was decisive.
Verdict
By declaring Abbott was “free to go forward” Starmer demonstrated that the choice was always his, and his conflation of that decision with a disciplinary investigation that had concluded months earlier compounds the falsehood.
We emailed Sir Keir Starmer’s office and Labour offering them the chance to respond. We received no response.
We also emailed Diane Abbott offering her the opportunity to respond, she replied “Thank you for the courtesy of informing me of the content of your piece. I am frequently taken aback by the number of your colleagues in the press who neglect to do so. However, I do not wish to comment on the content of the piece at this time. I hope you will understand.”