Labour MPs renew calls for Diane Abbott to resign after she misses crucial Article 50 vote with 'migraine'

Diane Abbott should resign if she is unable to be “part of the team” and support Jeremy Corbyn over Brexit, one of the party’s MPs has claimed.

Caroline Flint, a centrist Labour backbencher, mocked the Shadow Home Secretary for having “Brexit flu” after Ms Abbott missed last week’s crucial Article 50 vote in Parliament, having gone home early and saying she had a migraine.

Ms Flint told ITV’s Peston on Sunday: “We used to have man flu, we now have Brexit flu that Diane has created.”

The former Shadow Energy and Climate Change Secretary said Ms Abbott should resign if she is unable to support Jeremy Corbyn on Brexit.

“It’s about being part of a team and I think [Ms Abbott] holds one of the most important portfolios within a shadow cabinet [or] cabinet,” she said.

“If she can’t support the leader on this then she should go.”

Ms Abbott angered colleagues after missing the crucial vote, despite some MPs with cancer having travelled hundreds of miles to take part.

She said she had gone home early after suffering a bad migraine and having told Mr Corbyn’s office she was leaving. Critics pointed out she had been well enough to speak in another parliamentary debate just three hours earlier, and was tweeting shortly before the Article 50 vote.

Media reports suggest Ms Abbott is expected to follow the party line when the European Union Bill returns to Parliament on Monday, although allies have not been able to confirm her intentions.

It is unlikely to quell the anger of her colleagues, some of whom are openly calling for her to resign.

John Mann, the MP for Bassett Law, told BBC News: “We have some very, very ill people who turned up to parliament to vote yesterday who are so sick they cannot carry on with their work as MPs. They voted and [Ms Abbott] gave herself a sick note at 5pm.

“We all know what is going on here. She bottled the vote. It is cowardice. You don’t abstain on the big votes. It is embarrassing to see that. She ought to give an apology to the Labour party for doing so. That is not leadership, that’s cowardice.

“Hiding away from big votes is not the way we should be doing things. And she should have been in with me and Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell in voting the Labour line. She wasn’t, and that’s not very clever.”

But Labour’s former deputy leader, Harriet Harman, defended Ms Abbott. She told Sky News’ Sophy Ridge on Sunday: “She said she was ill and unable to vote and I think you just have to accept that.

“Diane had actually been on TV saying she was going to vote for Article 50 so she had already taken the flak on it, so I’m just assuming that she didn’t vote because she wasn’t well.”