A CLASS of professional politicians has “brought politics into disrepute,” Diane Abbott says.

Speaking at a gathering of young Labour activists, the shadow home secretary argued that Westminster had encouraged young graduates to become politicians “for the sake of it.”

She said this had led to Labour MPs not being representative of the country or the diversity of the party’s support base.

Too many MPs had moved straight from university into jobs as party apparatchiks and then got selected in safe seats, she said.

Other speakers at the Tower Hamlets Young Labour launch event on Monday night told the audience of their experience of “getting into politics.”

But Ms Abbott warned: “It’s a narrative which I regard with a certain amount of scepticism. Politics is not like being a manager at Waitrose.

“This is what has brought politics into disrepute. If you don’t care about anything, if you want to be a politician for the sake of it, find something else to do.”

Ms Abbott worked as a TV journalist and was active in London Labour Party politics before she was selected as a parliamentary candidate. Elected in 1987, she was Britain’s first black female MP.

She said it was too easily forgotten that representation of people from marginalised groups in Labour’s ranks had been a struggle. She recalled that she had been told her local party was “full up” when she tried to join in the 1980s.

“It has been a battle, and the price of equality has been eternal vigilance,” she said.

She also said critics of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership should quit sniping.

“We shouldn’t let sectarianism blind us to the fact that we have an opportunity as a party that we will not have again,” she said.

Corbyn-sceptic Labour MP Wes Streeting, who also spoke at the event, acknowledged that he had been wrong about the Labour leader’s effect on the party’s support.

But he said that changes to party rules to make it easier to deselect MPs would be a “waste of time” and a “distraction.”