Diane

First black woman MP, longest-serving female MP, and a lifelong campaigner for racial equality.

Diane Julie Abbott (born 27 September 1953) is a British politician who has served as a Member of Parliament (MP) for Hackney North and Stoke Newington since 1987. She was the first black woman elected to the UK Parliament, and in 2024 became its longest-serving female MP, earning the title Mother of the House. A former Shadow Home Secretary and Privy Counsellor, Abbott has been a prominent figure on the Labour left and a vocal campaigner on issues of race and inequality. She was suspended from the Labour Party in 2023 over comments about racism, later apologised, and had the whip restored ahead of the 2024 general election. In July 2025, she was suspended again after reiterating those remarks in a BBC interview, and sat as an independent MP until July 2026, when the whip was restored following the ascension of Andy Burnham as Labour leader.

Quick Facts

Office: Mother of the House
Took office: 5 July 2024
Predecessor: Harriet Harman (de-facto)
Birth name: Diane Julie Abbott
Born: 27 September 1953
Birthplace: Paddington, London, England
Party: Labour
Children: 1

Lore & Background

Diane Abbott was born on 27 September 1953 in Paddington to Jamaican parents. Her father was a welder and her mother a nurse; both left school at 14. She attended Harrow County School for Girls (a grammar school) and then Newnham College, Cambridge, where she studied history, achieving a lower second-class degree (2:2). At Cambridge, one of her supervisors was Simon Schama.

After university, Abbott became an administration trainee at the Home Office (1976–1978), then a Race Relations Officer at the National Council for Civil Liberties (1978–1980). She worked as a researcher and reporter at Thames Television (1980–1983), a researcher at TV-am (1983–1985), a press officer at the Greater London Council under Ken Livingstone (1985–1986), and Head of Press and Public Relations at Lambeth Council (1986–1987). In 2024, during the Undercover Policing Inquiry, the Metropolitan Police apologised for using undercover officers to spy on anti-racism campaigners, including Abbott, during the 1980s and 1990s.

Many secret police reports on Abbott were uncovered by the inquiry. Abbott criticised these activities as being racist and unjustified.

Reader's Guide

On 20 May 2010, Abbott announced her intention to stand in the Labour leadership contest. She secured the necessary 33 nominations, assisted by the withdrawal of John McDonnell and support from David Miliband and Jack Straw, among others. On 25 September 2010, Ed Miliband was announced as the new leader of the Labour Party, Abbott having been eliminated in the first round of voting after securing 7.24% of votes. Abbott was later appointed Shadow Minister for Public Health by Ed Miliband.

Following her move onto the front bench, the Telegraph said on 27 September 2011 that Abbott had 'become one of Labour's best front bench performers'. On 8 October 2013, Abbott was sacked as Shadow Public Health Minister in a reshuffle by Labour leader Ed Miliband, and replaced by Luciana Berger. A close ally of Jeremy Corbyn, Abbott was one of 36 Labour MPs to nominate him as a candidate in the Labour leadership election of 2015. Following Corbyn's election as Labour leader, Abbott was appointed to the post of Shadow Secretary of State for International Development.

On 27 June 2016, following the resignations of many of Labour's shadow ministerial team in the aftermath of the Brexit referendum, Abbott was promoted to the position of Shadow Health Secretary. On 6 October 2016, following the resignation of Andy Burnham, Abbott was appointed Shadow Home Secretary. She was sworn of the Privy Council on 15 February 2017. On 2 May 2017, during that year's general election campaign, Labour's pledge to recruit an extra 10,000 police officers was overshadowed by Abbott's inability to give accurate funding figures.

In an interview on LBC Radio with Nick Ferrari, she repeatedly struggled to explain how the promise would be funded. In the interview, Abbott frequently paused, shuffled her papers and gave out the wrong figures. When asked about her performance, the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, insisted he was not embarrassed by what many pundits called a 'car crash' interview. In a further interview conducted by ITV on 5 May 2017, as the 2017 local elections results were being announced, Abbott was again unable to give accurate figures on the Labour Party's performance suggesting that the party had a net loss of 50 seats. However, her figure was corrected by the interviewer who stated that Labour had in fact lost 125 seats.

Did You Know?

She gave birth to her son in October 1991, one year before the House of Commons introduced a crèche.
Her speech on the Counter-Terrorism Bill 2008 won The Spectator's 'Parliamentary Speech of the Year' award.