Diane Abbott targeted by far-right trolls with fake leadership campaign

Twitter users have rushed to defend Diane Abbott today after a group of far-right trolls launched a faux leadership bid in her name.

Numerous accounts started propelling the hashtag ‘All in for Abbott’ as a means of trolling the Hackney North and Stoke Newington MP.

Using a picture of Jacob Rees-Mogg as their profile picture, one person wrote: ‘Come on get this trending, that will keep them out for another two elections or 20 years.’

Another added: ‘We should go #ALLINFORABBOTT so she can continue the good work Jeremy Corbyn started and lead Labour to another sound thrashing at the 2024 election.’

One Twitter account using the name ‘Abbott4l’ has now been suspended.

Other users sharing the hashtag referenced far-right campaigner Tommy Robinson and Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage in their bios.

However, it was quickly noticed that the hashtag had not been started by Abbott or her supporters and people began using it to speak out in her defence.

One person tweeted: ‘This thread makes me sad for the future of the UK. It’s just a pack of animals tearing into a woman who receives more online abuse than any other MP.

‘We’d be lucky to have her for leader but thanks to this lot we’ll never be able to.’

Another said: ‘Tories yell at Labour for being anti-Semitic but the abuse Diane Abbott has endured for years comes from a place of racism and the disgust of a black woman being in power.

‘So stop with the double standards. #ALLINFORABBOTT.’

While a third noted: ‘Thousands of #ALLINFORABBOTT tweets.

‘Having read a few of them I wish people could remember both she and her family will likely read these today and most of the tweets are just horrible.’

Abbott has given no indication that she plans to run in the next Labour leadership race.

Current leader Jeremy Corbyn has so-far refused to resign, despite stating that he would not lead the party through another General Election.

Today he claimed he had ‘won the argument’ despite Labour’s worst election performance since 1935.

Writing in The Observer, he insisted the policies he set out were genuinely popular and had re-set the terms of the debate in the election.

He said: ‘I am proud that on austerity, on corporate power, on inequality and on the climate emergency we have won the arguments and rewritten the terms of political debate.

‘There is no doubt that our policies are popular, from public ownership of rail and key utilities to a massive house-building programme and a pay rise for millions.

‘The question is how can we succeed in future where we didn’t this time?’

However, Corbyn did apologise to Labour supporters over the party’s catastrophic performance, saying he acknowledged the party ‘came up short’ and he takes ‘responsibility for it.’