The four black MPs were inundated with casework from all over the country. Issues of racism, of discrimination, all the issues the black community faced.

Cited in Robin Bunce and Samara Linton "How Diane Abbott fought racism – and her own party – to become Britain’s first black female MP", The Guardian (29 September 2024), edited extract from the author's Diane Abbott: The Authorised Biography (Biteback)

Diane Abbott, Paul Boateng, Bernie Grant and Keith Vaz, all elected at the the 1987 United Kingdom general election; the first non-white MPs elected in the UK for more than half a century (excepting a very small number of MPs of mixed heritage).