Diane Abbott is frightened. Let that sink in. On Monday, Britain’s longest-serving Black MP learned that Frank Hester, the Conservative party’s biggest donor, is reported to have said during a meeting in 2019, that she made him “want to hate all Black women” and thought she deserved “to be shot.” For Abbott and Black women in this country who have had to reckon with the comments published by the Guardian this past week, Hester’s racist vitriol is nothing short of terrifying. Because let’s be clear, misogynoir of this severity is an act of violence. This shouldn’t be up for debate.
“It is frightening,” said Ms Abbott in a statement released to Good Morning Britain. “I live in Hackney and do not drive, so I find myself, at weekends, popping on a bus or even walking places more than most MPs. I am a single woman and that makes me vulnerable anyway. But to hear someone talking like this is worrying.”
“For all of my career as an MP I have thought it important not to live in a bubble, but to mix and mingle with ordinary people,” she added. “The fact that two MPs have been murdered in recent years makes talk like this all the more alarming.”
It is truly a sad state of affairs when a Black woman, who has spent decades in the public eye, has to appeal to society’s humanity — reminding of her status as a vulnerable single woman — for Hester’s reported comments to be denounced as outright racism by her peers. Abbott’s fears are rightly shared by Black female politicians, including Birmingham’s first Black woman MP, Labour’s Paulette Hamilton who told the BBC that the comments towards Ms Abbott had added to “the threat and anxiety levels of MPs in Parliament”.
I think calling for a Black woman to be shot does indeed incite racial hatred and violence and yet, like clockwork, the UK descended into needless debates about whether Hester and his alleged comments were even racist at all. Following the release of Hester’s alleged comments on Monday, cabinet minister Mel Stride said, per BBC News, that, while Hester’s alleged remarks were “inappropriate”, they were not “gender-based or race-based”. Meanwhile, Frank Hester, who is the CEO of software company The Phoenix Partnership and donated £10m to the Tories last year, quickly released an I’m not racist campaign and publicly backtracked from the comments he reportedly made in 2019. “Mr Hester has made clear that while he was rude, his criticism had nothing to do with her gender nor the colour of her skin,” Hester’s spokesperson said. “He has since apologised.” In a statement published to X, formerly Twitter, it was stressed that Hester “wishes to make it clear that he regards racism as a poison which has no place in public life.”
But, as it has been pointed out by many Black journalists and politicians this past week, if this isn’t racist then what is? If these comments aren’t considered violent, then what will be? As Abbott writes herself in an article for the Guardian, “It should be absolutely clear that the reported remarks from Frank Hester were both outrageously racist and sexist and any delay in calling it out is ‘absolutely unconscionable’.”
This week, we’ve waited impatiently in the wings for Frank Hester to face some appropriate consequences for his racism (including growing calls to have him stripped of his OBE). When will it be made clear that you do not get to spout racist hatred and then distance yourself from accusations of racism? If Frank Hester said those racist, vengeful words with his chest, surely he has to own them?
So far, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his cabinet have offered their lukewarm statements ( it was giving ‘sorrows, sorrows, prayers…’). After initially failing to condemn Hester’s comments as racist until 24 hours later, during Prime Minister’s questions on Wednesday, Sunak said, “The alleged comments were wrong, they were racist, he has rightly apologised for them and that remorse should be accepted. There is no place for racism in Britain, and the government I lead is living proof of that.” However, the prime minister also confirmed he would not return the helicopter or money Hester had donated to the party, stating, per BBC News, “No. And I am pleased that the gentleman is supporting a party that represents one of the most diverse governments in this country’s history, led by this country’s first British Asian prime minister.”
Ah. The gaslighting has commenced. Since Sunak’s ascent to No.10 as the UK’s British Asian leader, we have been repeatedly reminded that this is the “most diverse government in this country” resulting, according to them, in a party that adequately reflects the needs and desires of multicultural Britain. In reality, between the Conservative party’s racist Rwanda deportation scheme, a long history of legislation that harms Black and brown Brits, and mounting accusations of using anti-muslim rhetoric, this Tory cabinet has long proved its diversity is merely tokenistic.
The racism witnessed in British politics, across both political parties, reflects so much of Black women’s wider experiences in British society; how our feelings and our fears are often invalidated by a country that doesn’t like to admit that it is deeply and systemically flawed when it comes to racism. As Black women, we understand full well how racism and sexism intersect to form a very unique form of oppression, namely misogynoir, that our careers or financial successes don’t protect us from, whether in maternal care or within our professions.
Despite all Diane Abbott has achieved throughout her parliamentary career — the first Black woman to be elected into the House of Commons in 1987 and longstanding MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington — she also has to wear the unfortunate label of the “most vilified and abused” MP in UK history. Back in 2019, research conducted by Amnesty International found that in the run-up to the 2017 election, the racist and sexist abuse Diane Abbott received accounted for 45% of all abusive tweets against women MPs. No politician should be free from criticism (Abbott was suspended from Labour’s parliamentary party in August 2023), however, Abbott is so viciously ridiculed, dog-piled and verbally abused that it is a wonder how this has impacted her mental health throughout her career.
It was particularly gut-wrenching to watch Diane Abbott stand 46 times during Prime Minister’s Questions and be ignored by the speaker, whilst the rest of parliament debated the racist abuse she received. Right now, surely, it is integral to hear Abbott’s voice more than ever. She deserves that — at the very least. As former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn tweeted yesterday, “If Parliament had listened to Diane Abbott: We wouldn’t have invaded Iraq. Black Britons wouldn’t have been deported in the Windrush Scandal. Our country wouldn’t have been decimated by austerity. Diane’s voice should not be ignored — her ongoing mistreatment is a disgrace.”
Abbott has since reported Frank Hester to the police, meanwhile, a Metropolitan Police spokesperson said they are “assessing matters.” Good. Hester’s comments are yet another confirmation of what we already know: that no matter how you spin it or dress it up and call it “subtle”, racism is very much alive and well in this country. And, it is terrifying, and violent and can cause irrevocable damage to the Black people it is aimed at.
Painfully, Abbott said in her article for the Guardian that she has become “hardened to racist abuse” over the years. It should go without saying that she shouldn’t have to grow such a thick skin that it becomes calloused. Once again, Black women have to harness an inordinate amount of strength to continue to exist in rooms where we are told we don’t belong. If Diane Abbott makes Frank Hester “hate all Black women” then a verbal attack on Abbott is an attack on all Black women — it takes a blatant and intentional disregard for our humanity to deny it.
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