BRITISH-born Jamaican, Diane Abbott yesterday launched her historic bid to become the first black woman to lead the Labour Party, and succeed former prime minister, Gordon Brown.

Abbott — who writes a weekly column for the Jamaica Observer’s Agenda, which is published on Sundays — made it onto the ballot paper just in time to be among five people who will seek the September 25 election for leader of the Labour Party.

The leadership post became vacant following the resignation of Brown, who took responsibility for the party’s loss in the May 6 general elections that brought a coalition to power in Britain.

Abbott, whose parents came originally from the parish of Clarendon, has maintained close touch with Jamaica through frequent visits to the island.

She is the member of Parliament for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, London, a constituency with large numbers of West Indians.

The London Evening Standard newspaper said Abbott squeezed on to the starting line with the help of one of her rivals, David Miliband, “who later said he was proud that his nomination had delivered a ‘historic day for diversity in Britain’ by enabling a black woman to stand for the first time for the leadership of a major party”.

Abbott secured the necessary 33 nominations from Labour MPs after fellow left-winger John McDonnell withdrew from the contest and offered her his backing to ensure there was a woman on the ballot paper.

The contest will be a race among four white, male Oxbridge-educated former ministers and a Cambridge-educated black woman considered an outsider. Her opponents will be David Miliband; his younger brother Ed Miliband, the shadow energy secretary; Ed Balls, the shadow education secretary; and Andy Burnham, the shadow health secretary.

The newspaper said the candidates would have “a gruelling 15-week campaign featuring dozens of hustings, speeches and TV and radio debates before Gordon Brown’s successor is named on September 25”.

Firing an early salvo at Abbott in yesterday’s Guardian newspaper, columnist Paul Richards wrote: “It is a foolish error to deliberately give a leg-up to someone whose policies would guarantee a Conservative government at the next election. It will skew the leadership debates to the left. It will reopen all manner of settled issues. But the real danger is that Diane Abbott might actually win. As David Miliband and the others may discover: you have to be careful what you wish for.”

Abbott, the longest serving MP of all the candidates, pointed to black American Rev Jesse Jackson, when he ran for the Democratic nomination as their presidential candidate, said nobody gave him a chance. But he had paved the way for the first black president in Barack Obama.

“I want to lay the ground for blacks and women,” she told an interviewer.

In her May 20 announcement that she would contest Labour Party leadership, Abbott said: “I am not just another man in a suit. There’s not a lot of difference between the candidates so far. I am standing because I represent ‘real choice’, not a return to the Blair/Brown politics of the past 13 years. I voted against the Iraq war which is the single biggest source of disillusionment with Labour.

“And I do not believe that we lost the election because of immigration, as some of my rivals seem to be suggesting. I am a truly independent candidate who will create real change out of the ashes of New Labour, and reclaim the true identity of the Labour Party. I want to provide a platform for debate about who should be the next leader, and that debate would not be complete without a candidate, like myself, who represents a more diverse choice.”