>WhatsApp messages expose anti-Blackness in Labour – Especially Diane Abbott MP ( the first female Afro-Caribbean MP )
>Keir Starmer, Labour Leader , downplayed the significance of the private messages.
Black voters are still reeling from the aftermath of the leaked report and many have told us that they now feel “politically homeless”. Labour officials used a string of insults in private WhatsApp groups to describe senior Black MPs and officials including Diane Abbott, Dawn Butler and Clive Lewis.
A longstanding BAME Londoner Mahmoud Junju, said “ The Report is damning and I find the silence of the upper echelons of the party worrying.
The findings exposed anti-Blackness in the party – especially towards Black Labour MPs like ‘Auntie’ Abbott. She’s one MP who has faced the most abuse in recent British history and we can’t ignore the fact that it’s mainly because she’s a Black woman”
Junju has cancelled his membership after almost a decade.
Starmer’s recent BBC interview – where he downplayed the accusations – and dismissed the Black Lives Matter goal of defunding the police as “nonsense”.
Later he had to appealed to Black voters not to leave the party, following backlash over the interview .
Reports in June showed that scores of Black people were leaving or considering leaving the party over these concerns. That anti-Black racism was not being adequately addressed by the leadership.
His BBC interview won the praise of far-right leader Nigel Farage. Afterwards the Labour leader when told of this fact ,replied emphatically “I have nothing in common with Nigel Farage.”
Keir Starmer also faces backlash from Labour’s ruling committee after his political lawyers said criticism was ‘po-faced’ and that “officials had an expectation of privacy”
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