OPINION - Rachel Johnson: Keir Starmer's handling of the Diane Abbott row makes the Tories' campaign look slick

Oh dear, oh dear. Who was it who said divided parties don’t win elections? Who could have guessed that civil war would be convulsing not the incumbents but their challengers only a week into GE 2024?

Of course, the good ship Labour is still sailing serenely ahead and will make it into port first. But I predict the Tory Titanic will run her closer than everyone assumes. Why? For one, Diane Abbott.

The debacle over the veteran MP, who has held Hackney and Stoke Newington since 1987, and converted a majority of 7,600 into one of 33,000 — well, what can I say?

This is so shambolic and shameful — in terms of handling — that it makes the Conservatives’ election campaign look slick, even “strong and stable” in comparison. At least Rishi Sunak hasn’t first removed the whip, and then hung out to dry for more than a year, his party’s and the country’s first black woman MP.

Whatever fulsome valedictory tributes to the lifelong Left-winger will no doubt be forthcoming, what a schoolboy unforced error from Sir Keir Starmer’s “completely changed” Labour Party.

When Abbott entered the House of Commons, it was only 6.3 per cent women (there were 47 lady members) and she was one of four black MPs. Abbott is now 70. She suffers from debilitating diabetes. An Amnesty International study showed she received a full half of all abuse sent to female MPs in the run-up to the 2017 election.

She should have been treated with the highest respect as a Westminster village elder rather than have fresh humiliations heaped upon her. Recently, a millionaire Tory donor called Frank Hester was reported to have said her very existence made him “want to hate all black women”. Even more recently, the Labour Party welcomed a white middle-class Tory woman — Natalie Elphicke — into its bosom while still excluding Abbott.

What, I hear you mutter, was she being punished for, apart from being a Corbynista, and adopting some pretty funky foreign policy positions? Can you even remember?

Last spring, she wrote to the Observer. In her short letter she said that Jewish people were white and therefore experienced not racism but prejudice, similar to redheads, say. This caused an outcry and Abbott immediately apologised for any “anguish” caused. She had the Labour whip withdrawn, and, it is said, underwent reprogramming. Seen through the lens of today’s “discourse” — with blood libels as well as actual bombs and rockets raining down during the Israel-Hamas war — does Abbott’s ill-judged letter really seem like a hanging offence now?

If he has any sense, Sir Keir and his hapless chief whip should crawl over broken glass from the Labour’s HQ in Southwark to Hackney first to beg her to stand again — which she won’t — and self-flagellate in her presence.

They should make it clear that there is still a place for Abbott (she can’t get a peerage, I suppose, because Sir Keir wants to abolish them) and not just say something like this: “The whip has been restored to Diane Abbott as you know,” as Sir Keir said yesterday. This was after he’d managed a situation in only the second week of the campaign when nobody was talking about Labour’s plans for the health service as the junior doctors announced yet another strike, or anything on message, and instead absolutely everyone was talking about poor Diane. “So she is a member of the Parliamentary Labour Party and no decision has been taken to bar her going forward.”

“No decision has been taken to bar her going forward.” This is such bad politics. As her former parliamentary pair, the Rev Jonathan Aitken — who is also godfather to Abbott’s son — said to me yesterday, “Looking ahead, I hope the Labour Party will be big-hearted and wise enough to find a place for one of its most iconic and inspiring members.” Even if it was more cock-up than conspiracy, the chief whip should “hang his head in shame”, the Rev Aitken continued. And I agree.

This mess really is the trifecta of doom: it looks sexist, ageist and racist.

What she said in her letter — and I had to look it up — was a mistake. It was wrong. But it was pretty milky and meek compared to the rank racism she has herself endured during her long decades serving the Labour Party, and the vile antisemitism that is rampant now.

It was easy to restore the whip to Diane Abbott — but now Captain Sensible has to course correct and restore her dignity, too.

Rachel Johnson is a contributing editor of the Evening Standard