How Sir Keir Starmer’s mishandling of Diane Abbott overshadowed first week of campaign

“What’s wrong with Starmer?” one voter demanded to know as a Labour candidate proffered a leaflet emblazoned with the party’s core pledges.

“He’s always changing his mind,” the voter grumbled, in a scene that has become familiar to activists and would-be MPs hitting doorsteps across the country.

The subject of their ire was not a matter of party policy, but rather the Labour leader’s high-profile mishandling of the Diane Abbott case.

Over the past week, it is a conversation that candidates have found themselves drawn into time and time again as they tried in vain to plug their key messages.

Sir Keir finally bowed to weeks of pressure, both external and more importantly internal, on Friday, and agreed to let the veteran Left-wing MP stand for his party.

“The whip has obviously been restored to her now and she is free to go forward as a Labour candidate,” he told broadcasters during a trip to Scotland.

Unenthusiastic endorsement for Abbott

His unenthusiastic endorsement came just hours after he had refused to back Ms Abbott’s candidacy at a press conference to launch his green energy plans.

The climbdown was a rare defeat for Sir Keir, who has ruthlessly reformed his party and squeezed out Jeremy Corbyn supporters since taking charge four years ago.

In many ways, it was the result of the runaway success of what Left-wing activists have dubbed a “purge” led by Morgan McSweeney, the leader’s all-powerful chief of staff.

On this occasion, the Labour leadership reached too far in trying to take out a high-profile MP for whom even Tory opponents have expressed some admiration and sympathy.

Sir Keir’s defiance finally wilted on Friday following three days of ferocious questioning over two media reports which threw his version of events into doubt.

On Tuesday morning, the BBC broke the news that the National Executive Committee’s investigation into Ms Abbott had concluded last December.

That undermined the Labour leader’s core argument that he had no control over Ms Abbott’s case because it rested with the party’s governing body.

Left-wing activists reacted with fury, with the news prompting one member of the NEC to tell The Telegraph that it showed Sir Keir had been lying.

Restoring whip failed to end tensions

Labour responded that evening by restoring the whip to the veteran backbencher in the hope that allowing her back into the party would quell their rage.

But just minutes later their efforts to contain the story were derailed once again as The Times reported that a decision had been taken to bar her as a candidate.

Sir Keir was forced on to the back foot and spent the next day, which was supposed to be Labour’s big day on the NHS, having to repeatedly deny the allegations.

But he was unable to shake the story from the headlines, and cracks in the party’s position began to emerge as shadow ministers were grilled on the airwaves.

Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, told reporters he was “not particularly” comfortable with the way that the case had been handled.

The coup de grace came on Thursday when, as the Labour leader attended his party’s election launch in Wales, his deputy directly defied him.

In a series of broadcast interviews, Angela Rayner heavily criticised the party’s approach and said she saw “no reason” for Ms Abbott to stand as a candidate.

Sir Keir was confronted with her comments whilst he was doing a huddle with journalists in Abergavenny, at which he lavished praise on Ms Abbott’s record.

That evening and the next day, in Scotland, the leader and deputy spent hours together on the campaign trail before Sir Keir announced his U-turn.

Candidates ambushed on doorstep

It came after news filtered back to Labour HQ that its candidates were being similarly ambushed by voters on the doorstep.

A candidate said activists had become “demotivated” by the way the row over Sir Keir’s treatment of her had overshadowed the launch of the campaign.

“The leadership failed at the first hurdle and it wasn’t even a Tory trap,” the candidate told The Telegraph, adding: “This was entirely self-inflicted.”

At the same time the Labour leader was warned that his treatment of Ms Abbott, a staunch pro-Gaza advocate, risked further alienating Muslim voters.

A group representing Muslim members of the party reached out privately to Sir Keir’s office,  and urged him to rethink his refusal to endorse her candidacy.

Their feedback was echoed by focus group findings, published just hours before the Labour leader’s U-turn, which showed the row had cut through to voters.

More in Common said voters thought he had been “underhanded” in his treatment of Ms Abbott and that this was “a demonstration of weakness”.

Sir Keir will also have feared the ramifications of letting the dispute rumble on for any longer given the way it was exposing the Left-Right split within his party.

He had faced months of dissent from Left-wing figures within the ranks over the suspension of Ms Abbott for more than a year following an anti-Semitism row.

Sunak’s snap election provoked crisis

But it was the decision by Rishi Sunak to call a snap election that forced his hand by kick-starting the candidate selection process in dozens of constituencies.

Among those still without a Labour candidate was Hackney North and Stoke Newington where Ms Abbott had sat as an independent since her suspension last April.

It is one of the safest Labour seats in the country, boasting an unassailable 33,000 majority, and would have been a significant prize for a Starmer loyalist.

Left-wing activists feared a stitch-up, with a centrist ally being parachuted in, and swiftly mobilised a campaign to see off such a threat.

A petition was launched by a group of Left-wing members, which was handed to Sir Keir after amassing 15,000 signatures within a matter of days.

John McDonnell, who served alongside her in Mr Corbyn’s shadow cabinet, was first out of the blocks as he backed calls for her to be reinstated.

Other backbench MPs swiftly followed, including Jess Phillips, who warned the Labour leadership that their battle with the Left was a fight not worth having.

As Sir Keir returned home from Scotland on Friday night, he will have hoped his decision to support Ms Abbott’s candidacy means the story finally moves on.

But he may also have taken a moment to reflect on a harsh lesson learnt about the extent of his power over his own party – and the limits to which he can push it.