Labour “nothing to say on racial justice”

Party rocked as most senior black MP quits post

Pictured: Marsha De Cordova

Labour’s most senior black politician quit after falling out with Keir Starmer over race equality issues.

Well-placed sources told The Voice that Battersea MP Marsha de Cordova, who resigned as the party’s shadow equalities minister earlier this week, had grown increasingly frustrated with senior advisers to the party leader.
Friends say Starmer’s inner cabal sidelined her efforts to develop plans for a new law to tackle racial injustice.

De Cordova is the second black woman to step down as Labour’s shadow equalities minister after Dawn Butler’s resignation following Starmer’s election as leader last year.

Associates of the Battersea MP claim that the party failed to put her on a single ‘media round’ during 17 months in the job, and that she was offered just five minutes speaking time at Labour’s annual conference, which takes place next week.

Campaigners saw De Cordova as a highly effective politician after she dismantled the government’s Sewell report, and highlighted issues like the maternal mortality gap.

Sources said that efforts to set up a taskforce of experts to design progressive race equality policy were held back over concerns this might upset Red Wall voters, and that Starmer had resisted pleas to make a speech setting out his vision to black communities.

The revelations come amid growing pressure for the release of a report into alleged racism of party officials against Butler and fellow MPs Diane Abbott and Clive Lewis.

A member of the party’s ruling National Executive Committee (NEC) said that a coalition of leftwing and centre-left members would be pushing for the Forde Inquiry report to be published at their meeting on Friday.

The inquiry is looking into leaked WhatsApp messages which appear to show HQ staff mocking MPs including calling Abbott an “angry black woman.”

A friend of de Cordova said: “It’s been bubbling for a while. She just wasn’t being supported and the bottom line was you can only do so much before it becomes difficult, and it did become very difficult.

“She always had a goal that she wanted Keir to speak authentically about race and, despite her trying, it just was never going to happen.

“Marsha wanted to develop Labour’s vision for race equality but kept meeting stumbling blocks, even to just put out comments on things, it was watered down. You know, challenging the Prime Minister, you’re not allowed to do that.

“It’s the people around Starmer, his team, they don’t understand race or importance of it.”

Leading leftwinger Lewis said the party was in a “death spiral” and that black party members were in a “bad place.”

He said: “They’ve got nothing to say on racial justice. Well, they did have something to say and that was through Marsha and now she’s gone.”

An NEC source that Martin Forde QC had “probably done a better job than [the party] had hoped for” in investigating claims of racism.

The party will be unveiling some good news as they announce that a new annual Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic conference for members will start next year along with a new internal organisation to represent all BAME members.

A Labour spokesman refused to comment on de Cordova but confirmed that her replacement will be appointed “in due course”.

A source said that the Forde report has been delayed due to the ongoing Information Commissioners Office (ICO) inquiry, believed to centre on breaches of personal data.

The party had discussed with Martin Forde what can be done to ensure publication as soon as possible without prejudicing the ICO inquiry.

Comments Form

8 Comments

  1. | Kadeena

    The assertion that –
    “It’s the people around Starmer, his team, they don’t understand race or importance of it,” is absolutely not true.

    They understand the importance of race very well.
    The Labour party know they need the votes of the so called red wall, brexit-voting, anti-immigration – often racist constituents they lost in the last election.
    The tories are also well aware of this and don’t even feel the need to hide this fact. They weaponise race constantly. Labour, under Starmer are playing the same game, only not quite so avertly.

    Reply

    • | Rose Seabury

      Agree with the above comment, 100%

      Reply

  2. | Isabel Biggins

    Totally agree with this “The Labour party know they need the votes of the so called red wall, brexit-voting, anti-immigration – often racist constituents they lost in the last election.” Pandering to racists is not the way ahead.

    Reply

    • | Oliver

      The problem with Starmer is he wants to be inoffensive and please everyone. So his new essay says that “structural racism harms all communities”.

      Er no, racism by definition benefits one group at the expense of another. He obviously means to say that there’s racism in favour of white people at the expense of ethnic minorities, but doesn’t want to offend any white voters. So his sentences are meaningless waffle because they try to please everyone.

      Reply

      • | Theo

        Starmer isn’t interested in politics or Labour at all.
        His sole goal is to destroy Labour.

        Reply

  3. | Mewun

    I will never vote labour again, Kier is a puppet and have nothing to say about what he really stand for, I’ve never hear him speaking up against injustice, against people of colour his cabinet is proof of it he did not support ms Dawn Butler when she spoke the truth about Boris j lies something that the whole country knows to be true.
    Kier only wanted to get the title as leader of the labour party, he is not to be trusted, he is a Tory sympathiser through and through, I’m a white person who generation has been voting for the Labour Party for 3 generation never have I seen such a poor leader it’s clear that he is not interesting in any other community issues but white issues, where is the equality for working class and underprivileged communities? I guess he will be promoting something like priti Patel to take over the post of equality minister, he is uncomfortable with black women speaking the truth. Let’s see how many black mps will leave. This party is becoming a laughing stock for the conservative party, stormer need to go, he is useless. Jeremy Corbin would do a far better job. We need a strong leader to save our party until I see that happening sorry to see so many strong talented hard working mps leaving due to the lack of support from their leader and party colleagues. I’m sure they will do better supporting their communities outside of this disgraceful party.

    Reply

  4. | Mark Clitheroe

    I hate to say this about a Labour leader but I’m beginning to believe that Keir Stamer doesn’t care about black people. From claiming Black Lives Matter is only a “moment” to his indifference to anti-black racism within the Labour Party. I applaud Marsha de Cordova for resigning from his team and by doing so highlighting Mr Stamer’s lack of concern for issues that are of particular importance to many black people.

    Reply

  5. | Dawn Queva

    Why don’t Butler and Cordova join forces and set up an independent party for the black community which will push for the real changes the community needs and then let the 3 main parties know that until these needs are met the black voters will only vote for the party which is actually prepared to act on them. That way the black vote will actually count for something as we will be voting as a collective en mass for one party. We may only make up 3% of the population but that’s nearly 2 million votes that no party will ignore if it means the difference between winning or losing an election!

    Reply

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