LONDON — Labour MPs are “waiting with bated breath” to hear whether Diane Abbott will stand down from the Shadow Cabinet on Wednesday.
The shadow home secretary last week missed a whipped vote on the Brexit bill after claiming to have suffered from a migraine.
Incredulous MPs reacted with fury when it was revealed that she had spoken in a Westminster Hall debate just hours before the vote.
Several other MPs with serious or even terminal illness also made it to the vote and four of her colleagues on the Labour front bench resigned after deciding to break the whip and not back the bill.
Shadow business secretary Clive Lewis has also indicated that he is likely to resign if Labour fails to secure any amendments today.
However, Abbott has remained uncharacteristically silent. The suspicion is that because she represents an inner London seat which overwhelmingly backed Remain, she decided to avoid both the fallout from voting for Brexit, or the inevitable resignation from voting against it.
Here’s Abbott speaking in Westminster hours before the vote:
On private Whatsapp groups Labour MPs launched a sarcastic #prayforDiane campaign and started a whip round to give her a get well card and present.
After returning to work, Business Insider understands that Abbott, who is a close ally of Corbyn, tried to convince the Labour leader to allow MPs to abstain on the third reading of the Brexit bill.
After failing to secure that, she sat silent during Tuesday’s shadow cabinet meeting, even when criticised by colleagues for her non-attendance at the vote.
Colleagues say the row has badly damaged her.
“Literally no-one in the party is justifying her stunt last week,”one Labour frontbencher told me this morning.
“We’re all waiting with bated breath to hear what she will do.”
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