Diane Abbott

Diane Abbott (born September 27, 1953, London, England) is a British politician who was the first woman of African descent elected (1987) to the House of Commons.

Abbott’s parents, originally from Jamaica, immigrated to the United Kingdom in the early 1950s. She was educated at Harrow County Grammar School for Girls and received a degree in history from the University of Cambridge in 1973. Abbott worked as a civil servant in the Home Office (1976–80) and then as a television reporter (1980–84). A member of the Labour Party, she served as a press officer for the Greater London Council and the Lambeth Borough Council and was active on race and civil liberties issues. She served on the Westminster City Council (1982–86) and in 1987 was selected over the sitting Labour member of Parliament as the party’s candidate for the London constituency of Hackney North and Stoke Newington. Easily winning office, she became the country’s first Black female member of Parliament and, with Bernie Grant and Paul Boateng, one of the first members of the House of Commons of African descent. Outspoken on many issues, Abbott occupied a left-of-centre position in the Labour Party during the 1990s, when Tony Blair’s reform (“modernization”) program abandoned many of the party’s traditional socialist policies.

Abbott continued to serve in Parliament, and she became known for her support of human rights issues. She was a vocal opponent of efforts to extend the amount of time that terror suspects could be detained without charge. Her work on the issue was noted by the organizations JUSTICE, Liberty, and the Law Society, which jointly presented her with a special human rights prize in 2008. After the 2010 British general election, in which Labour lost its majority, Abbott subsequently ran for party leader, but her bid was unsuccessful. Later in 2010 she was named shadow minister for public health. Despite Labour’s poor showing in the 2015 U.K. general election, Abbott hung on to her seat, going on to serve as shadow secretary of state for international development (2015–16) before becoming shadow secretary of state for public health in June 2016. When Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn reshuffled his shadow cabinet in October, Abbott was elevated to the post of shadow home secretary. She was reelected to her seat in the House of Commons in the June 2017 snap general election. After Keir Starmer replaced Corbyn as Labour leader in April 2020, Abbott stepped down as shadow home secretary.

In 2022 Abbott published the memoir A Woman Like Me.