At the New Statesman Labour leaders' debate last night, Diane Abbott announced: "My parents [as immigrants] would have been so proud to see me on this platform with so many distinguished men." There you have it. Her debut as a Labour leader candidate tied inextricably to her race and gender. Instead of distancing herself from cries of alleged tokenism, she seems to have embraced them.
As a black female, I feel it is disingenuous of me not to celebrate Abbott's nomination. But as someone who has worked in white middle-class, male-dominated industries for most of my adult life, I am acutely aware of the tendency to make token, disembodied gestures of promotion of minorities only for the good will and good PR this engenders. Cath Elliott said in her article yesterday that even if Abbott's nomination is tokenistic, she doesn't care as long as a black female is on the ballot. We should care if the nomination is purely symbolic. Not only is it a dead-end, it is dangerous, for such lip service masks the real problem and gives the illusion that progress is happening when only the minimum of compliance is being achieved.
Apart from her race and gender, what differentiates Abbott from the rest of the candidates? Is the ultimate purpose to conduct an empty exercise and promote those that are good for the party image, or source somebody who can truly lead and is electable by the nation? Even Harriet Harman, who nominated her, reportedly will not vote for her in the leadership race.
The subtext is that the party recognises it has some time out in the wilderness and therefore can afford to experiment and indulge itself. Her nomination did not swell up with momentum from the belly of the party. Labour Uncut reported that "what passes for a PLP establishment machine in these days of interregnum is making serious efforts to get Abbott onto the ballot paper" with Jack Straw weighing in at the 11th hour as the deadline approached. "Creaking, chaotic and late, what's left of the machine got it done in the end."
What is sad is that due to the way she has fought this campaign, Abbott let herself down. She is a great performer and by all accounts was the star of the Labour leadership hustings last night in Westminster. But in her eagerness to secure a position in the race she played to the gallery and overstated the gender and race aspects of her nomination and by doing so, undermined her own position.
She had a stab at taking the high ground, but lost it when she reneged on her promise to withdraw if she got fewer nominations than John McDonnell. Little on her views on Trident, the Iraq war, and the fact that she increased her majority in her constituency was voiced, lest we be distracted by this verbal strobe from the more relevant "facts" that the other candidates are all white, male, went to Oxbridge and "used to play football together". Positioning herself in these (forgive the pun) black-and-white terms unfairly dwarfs her stature and ultimately may alienate her from the majority of voters who I believe genuinely are only concerned about her political credentials.
There is always the risk with minority candidates that they will be disregarded as "cause" runners given a leg up because of their non-mainstream status. But Barack Obama is an example of someone who deliberately downplayed and thus, transcended his race.
Abbott's nomination may be a start, but it may well also be a false start.
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