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Labour’s investigation into Diane Abbott over the remarks which got her suspended from the party concluded in December, according to BBC Newsnight.
The veteran MP was kicked out of Labour 13 months ago over she wrote to The Observer suggesting that Jewish, Irish and Traveller people are not subject to racism “all their lives”.
Abbott apologised on X and withdrew her remarks, but Labour has repeatedly refused to say whether she may be welcomed back into the party any time soon.
Keir Starmer told the BBC on Friday that Abbott is “going through and being part of and getting to the end of a disciplinary process because of something she said”.
He promised it would be sorted “within a few days” because the candidate deadlines for the election is approaching.
Abbott has been in limbo over whether she can stand as a Labour candidate or as an independent in her constituency of Hackney North and Stoke Newington in the election in five weeks’ time.
But BBC Newsnight revealed on Tuesday that the party finished its investigation into her conduct five months ago.
Labour’s National Executive Committee apparently wrote to Abbott in December, issuing her with a “formal warning” for “engaging in conduct that in the opinion of the NEC, prejudicial and grossly detrimental to the Labour Party”.
At the committee’s request, Abbott then completed an “online e-learning module” in February, a move allegedly acknowledged by the chief whip – but still had no clarity on her future with the party.
Abbott has been in her Hackney North and Stoke Newington seat since 1987, when she was the first Black woman to ever elected to the British parliament.
Seen as a trailblazer, she was a close ally of former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and acted as his shadow home secretary.
Corbyn is standing as an independent in this election, having lost the whip over his reaction to a report into anti-semitism in the party.
Shadow business secretary Jonathan Reynolds clashed with Today programme host Emma Barnett over Abbott’s future when the Labour frontbencher refused to weigh in on the topic.
He just said: “The process we have in the Labour Party is not one that frankly any Labour politician decides, so I can’t give you an answer on that.”
Reynolds added: “I think that in any disciplinary matter you need both sides to engage in it, I genuinely have no additional information other than that.”
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