A year after her latest suspension the Mother of the House of Commons (the longest serving female MP) Diane Abbott has regained the Labour Whip.
Andy Burnham seems to have said that he will downgrade the whipping system and allow criticism and debate. Good, if it happens.
Diane Abbott was suspended a year ago in July 2025. Whether the comments she made were entirely appropriate or not (a political discussion not a disciplinary matter) she fell victim to the hardline sectarian factionalism of the McSweeney Labour Party.
Its possible that regaining the Whip means that the door to Labour’s Broad Church (where as Ralph Miliband noted, the left were allowed to sit in the pews at the back provided they didn’t make too much noise) is slightly ajar. However the Labour bureaucracy, the officials who run things, will still have many Starmerites in place. Further Andy Burnham has recruited some Labour Together types for central roles.
How this plays out depends a lot more on what happens outside of Parliament than in it, pressure from without as the Victorians called it.
Kmflett's Blog 
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