Diane Abbott has reported Tory donor Frank Hester to the police, The Independent understands, after he was alleged to have said the MP “should be shot”.
Mr Hester, chief executive of The Phoenix Partnership (TPP) who donated £10m to the Conservative Party last year, is alleged to have said Ms Abbott made him “want to hate all Black women” during a business meeting in 2019.
He is alleged to have said: “It’s like trying not to be racist but you see Diane Abbott on the TV, and you’re just like … you just want to hate all Black women because she’s there.
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“And I don’t hate all black women at all, but I think she should be shot. [The executive] and Diane Abbott need to be shot.”
Ms Abbott, Britain’s longest-serving Black MP, has now reported Mr Hester’s “deeply offensive and threatening” remarks to the parliamentary police liaison and investigations team, The Independent understands.
In a statement issued on Tuesday morning, Ms Abbott said: “It is frightening. I live in Hackney, I don’t drive, so I find myself, at weekends, popping on a bus or even walking places, more than most MPs.
“I am a single woman and that makes me vulnerable anyway. But to hear someone talking like this is worrying.”
She added: “For all of my career as an MP I have thought it important not to live in a bubble, but to mix and mingle with ordinary people. The fact that two MPs have been murdered in recent years makes talk like this all the more alarming.
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“I’m currently not a member of the parliamentary Labour party, but remain a member of the Labour party itself, so I am hoping for public support from Keir Starmer.”
Describing Ms Abbott as a “trailblazer” who has “paved the way for others” and “probably faced more abuse than any other politician over the years on a sustained basis”, Sir Keir Starmer denounced the alleged remarks as “just abhorrent”.
The Labour leader told ITV’s Lorraine show: “And I’m sorry, this apology this morning that is pretending that what was said wasn’t racist or anything to do with the fact she’s a woman, I don’t buy that I’m afraid, and I think that it’s time the Tory Party called it out and returned the money.”
A statement released via Mr Hester’s firm on Monday that he was “deeply sorry” and had rung Ms Abbott twice “to try to apologise directly for the hurt he has caused her”.
“Frank Hester accepts that he was rude about Diane Abbot in a private meeting several years ago but his criticism had nothing to do with her gender nor colour of skin,” the statement said.
Mr Herbert “abhors racism, not least because he experienced it as the child of Irish immigrants in the 1970s”, the statement said, adding: “He wishes to make it clear that he regards racism as a poison which has no place in public life.”
More follows…