Diane Abbott, Paul Boateng and Bernie Grant are elected as the first black MPs in Great Britain.
Diane Abbott
Diane Julie Abbott is a British politician who has served as a Member of Parliament (MP) for Hackney North and Stoke Newington since 1987. She was the first black woman elected to the UK Parliament, and in 2024 became its longest-serving female MP, earning the title Mother of the House. A former Shadow Home Secretary and Privy Counsellor, Abbott has been a prominent figure on the Labour left and a vocal campaigner on issues of race and inequality. She was suspended from the Labour Party in 2023 over comments about racism, later apologised, and had the whip restored ahead of the 2024 general election. In July 2025, she was suspended again after reiterating those remarks in a BBC interview, and currently sits as an independent MP.
Paul Boateng
Paul Yaw Boateng, Baron Boateng, is a British Labour Party politician, a former civil rights lawyer and the Member of Parliament (MP) for Brent South from 1987 to 2005, becoming the UK's first Black Cabinet Minister in May 2002, when he was appointed as Chief Secretary to the Treasury. Following his departure from the House of Commons, he served as the British High Commissioner to South Africa from March 2005 to May 2009. He was introduced as a member of the House of Lords on 1 July 2010.
Bernie Grant
Bernard Alexander Montgomery Grant was a British politician who was the Member of Parliament for Tottenham, London, from 1987 to his death in 2000. He was a member of the Labour Party.