Chakrabarti response to MPs’ report ‘absurd’
BARONESS CHAKRABARTI has provoked anger after publicly declaring that the Commons home affairs select committee report on antisemitism was “overly politicised,” with a fellow Labour peer calling her criticism “an absurd and profoundly wrong response”.
The committee’s report, published in October, condemned her reluctance to identify exactly when she was offered a peerage by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.
Speaking to Radio 4’s programme on Monday, Baroness Chakrabarti said: “I disagree with that committee. I believe that that report was overly politicised and I regret the fact that I was not allowed to give evidence to it.”
The Baroness defended her own report on antisemitism in the Labour Party, saying that it had been written “in good faith.”
But Lord Mendelsohn, a Labour Shadow Minister in the House of Lords, described Baroness Chakrabarti’s comments as: “An absurd and profoundly wrong response to an excellent and expert parliamentary report.
“Incompletecontrast,”headded,“the Chakrabati report was a crude political device and accurately described as a whitewash — with recommendations that do nothing to make a material difference to tackling antisemitism or the disciplinary process in the party.
“One also cannot ignore that its credibility has been fatally undermined by the widespread perception of some sort of transaction around it.”
Baroness Chakrabarti’s report was published in late June and found that Labour was “not overrun by antisemitism, Islamophobia, or other forms of racism,” despite an “occasionally toxic atmosphere”.
In early August it was announced that Mr Corbyn, who had previously spoken out against the peeragesystem,hadnominated her to join the House of Lords. A month later, in early September, she became Baroness Chakrabarti of Kennington, subsequently joining Mr Corbyn’s Shadow Cabinet as Shadow Attorney General.
“Tackling the real problem of antisemitism in the Labour Party requires proper action and leadership, not denial and misdirection,” said Lord Mendelsohn. “What is particularly unhelpful is an acolyte who doesn’t know when to stop digging.”