Securing a border poll should be the shared objective of people on the left and the Irish community in Britain, Diane Abbott has said.
The Labour MP was speaking at Mary’s University College in Belfast on Friday as part of a Féile an Phobail event.
Ms Abbott reflected on the challenges facing left wing politics following the UK General Election and the evolving relationship between Britain and Ireland in the context of constitutional change.
“On a border poll, I hope that one happens before too long,” she said.
“Securing that should be the shared objective of people on the left and the Irish community in Britain.”
Ms Abbott has been one of the Labour Party’s most notable figures on the issues of human rights and police transparency, speaking out against stop and search practices and detainment without trial.
She made history when became the first black MP in 1987 and has remained a major figure in the Labour Party ever since.
“My engagement into politics began with campaigning around police and stop and search and those issues,” she recalled.
“The Labour Party itself had an amount of racism. I remember when I moved to Paddington and I tried to join the Labour Party. I would ring and ring the secretary and each time they said they would call me back but never did.
“Eventually friends, white friends, told me the place and time of a ward meeting. When I arrived this man saw me. He looked terrified and held his arms out across the doors.
“In end we resolved it, I’m sitting here today as a Labour MP so obviously we got it resolved.
“When I went to Cambridge University it was still unusual to have working class undergraduates as much as it was to have black undergraduates.”
She added that when she worked in the civil service, she was the only black woman in the organisation.
Ms Abbott added: “Jamaicans have a saying just put one foot in front of another. In all institutions I always just put one foot in front of other.
“For the first 10 years that I was elected, I was the only black woman MP in Westminster.
“But I just got on with it, I refused to let it get to me and kept fighting the corner of people.”
