Diane Abbott accused of hypocrisy over bullying
Allegations levelled against shadow home secretary amid Labour calls to sack her Tory counterpart Patel
LABOUR has been accused of hypocrisy over its calls for Priti Patel to be sacked over alleged bullying, as her counterpart Diane Abbott’s camp was last night facing claims about her own conduct.
The Sunday Telegraph can reveal that the shadow home secretary, who has called for an independent inquiry into Ms Patel, has been accused of shouting at and humiliating a former Labour staff member.
Party insiders have claimed that in 2017, Ms Abbott attempted to have the staffer, who was working on the election campaign in her constituency of Hackney, removed from their post.
The individual, who this newspaper has chosen not to name, was also allegedly shouted at by Ms Abbott in front of party volunteers and “deliberately undermined”, according to sources.
Separately, another Labour source claimed that staff liked by Ms Abbott had been allowed to call her “Diane” while others were asked to refer to her as “Ms Abbott”. A Labour frontbencher added: “She has got a bit of a whiplash of a tongue. I’ve heard her say things which made my hair stand up on end.”
Hitting back last night, a close ally of Ms Abbott categorically denied claims that she had ever made staff refer to her differently, adding that she was “very informal” and would often tell people it was fine to refer to her as Diane.
“I haven’t experienced that kind of behaviour,” they added. “I wouldn’t say there’s never been any disagreements. [But] there’s a big difference between bullying somebody and disagreeing.” The Telegraph was first alerted to claims against Ms Abbot in February after she questioned the possibility that John Bercow could have bullied David Leakey, Parliament’s former Black Rod, due to his prior military service. Her defence of the former Speaker followed a backlash over reports that Jeremy Corbyn had nominated Mr Bercow for a peerage, despite former Commons officials accusing him of bullying, which he denies. Since then, several Labour sources have levelled allegations at the shadow home secretary.
They include claims that Ms Abbott tried to force out a Labour staffer after the pair clashed over strategy in the 2017 election. One source said: “In front of volunteers, who were clearly supporters of hers, [she] would deliberately try to undermine and humiliate.”
The source recounted an incident where the pair clashed outside of a pub, claiming that it had descended into a “shouting match in public”.
“Several people have mentioned to me the treatment of Diane towards them,” they continued, adding: “She gets a lot of horrendous abuse, but she is a hypocrite.”
A former Labour official claimed: “She was relatively infamous, not least because she made staff who she didn’t like refer to her as Ms Abbott whereas staff that she did referred to her as Diane in her office.”
Others have expressed unease at the apparent double-standard in Labour’s calls for Ms Patel to be sacked as Home Secretary, pointing to the controversy surrounding the nomination of Mr Bercow for a peerage and Labour’s own failings on anti-Semitism and allegations of bullying.
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