Chakrabarti ‘to join Corbyn’s shadow Cabinet’
Shami Chakrabarti is set to join Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow Cabinet as the shadow Attorney General, it has been reported. The human rights lawyer, who led the Liberty campaign group for over a decade, was made a Labour peer by Mr Corbyn in David Cameron’s resignation honours. Her appointment to the House of Lords, the party leader’s only such nomination to the legislature, came after she chaired an inquiry into alleged antisemitism in the Labour party.
The New Statesman says Mr Corbyn intends to begin new appointments to the shadow Cabinet next week at the tail end of Conservative conference, which starts this weekend. A spokesperson for Mr Corbyn told
The Independent that appointments would take place next week but that none had yet been confirmed.
Some Labour MPs who quit the shadow Cabinet in late June are expected to return to the front bench; others who had not previously served might also join. Some MPs have said they will stay away, however.
In his conference speech Mr Corbyn called on his party to face outwards and focus on beating the Conservatives. He also thanked people who had joined the shadow Cabinet following the summer’s resignations, saying they had “stepped up when their party and in fact their country needed them to serve”. Baroness Chakrabarti’s appointment may be controversial as some critics of Mr Corbyn branded her inquiry a “whitewash”; others received its recommendations well, however.
The Attorney General is the Government’s chief legal advisor and is drawn from the legislature; their shadow holds them to account and develops alternative policies. Mr Corbyn’s team has resisted a suggestion for MPs to once again be allowed to elect the shadow Cabinet. The practise was previously abolished by Ed Miliband in 2011. It had been suggested that members might play a role in electing the front bench but this proposal has not gone ahead.