Labour MPs demand answers from Corbyn over timing of Chakrabarti’s peerage

Jeremy Corbyn has come under pressure from Labour MPs over his angry response to criticism of his handling of a series of anti-Semitism rows and the award of a peerage to Shami Chakrabarti.

The party leader was accused of “pouring petrol” on the dispute after he hit back at a “disproportionate” focus on Labour in a controversial inquiry on prejudice against Jews and claimed his opponents were trying to use the row as a “weapon”.

Last night Chuka Umunna and David Winnick, both members of the Commons home affairs select committee which produced the report, spoke out at the weekly meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP).

The independence of Chakrabarti’s inquiry had been questioned by the committee after Corbyn decided to recommend the barrister for a peerage and then handed her a job in the shadow Cabinet. Chakrabarti has denied her report was “transactional” in any way but yesterday Labour backbencher Wes Streeting demanded to know when she was first offered a peerage.

“The home affairs select committee asked a series of questions to Shami Chakrabarti, who is now shadow attorney general, which went unanswered,” he said, according to the Daily Mail.

“Until those questions are properly answered we won’t be able to draw a line under this and move forward, and those questions go to the heart of the independence of the Chakrabarti report, but also her credibility as shadow attorney general.

“What the Labour Party should have done is respond in an open-minded way, look carefully at what the report says and then respond to the substance instead of effectively pouring petrol on an already difficult situation.”

The report, published on Sunday, accused Corbyn of showing a “lack of consistent leadership” on the handing of anti-Semitism despite his many years campaigning against racism.

Corbyn was not thought to be at the meeting last night but at the weekend he issued a 640-word response to the report in which he again described anti-Semitism as an “evil” which must be opposed and added: “As the report rightly acknowledges, politicising antisemitism – or using it as a weapon in controversies between and within political parties – does the struggle against it a disservice.”