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.
“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.
“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.”
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