Baroness Chakrabarti has been appointed to Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Shadow Cabinet three months after she completed her inquiry into anti-Semitism allegations in the party.
Chakrabarti was handed the role of Shadow Attorney General as Mr Corbyn began a reshuffle of his team Thursday night and follows her appointment into the House of Lords in August.
The awarding of a seat in the House of Lords by Corbyn and now a position in his Shadow Cabinet not only questions her independence, but further undermines the credibility of the report.
Earlier in July, CUFI questioned the independence of the so-called independent inquiry, in which Chakrabarti came to conclusion that Labour does not have a problem with anti-Semitism. The inquiry avoided criticising Mr Corbyn for describing Hamas and Hezbollah as friends, and how this affected the debate on the issue in the party. She also failed to question why he didn’t clamp down quickly on anti-Semitic comments by Ken Livingstone and online posts by MP Naz Shah before she was elected. The report also recommended keeping suspensions secret and ruled out lifetime membership bans.
Her independence was further questioned by CUFI during the Parliamentary committee panel hearing during which Ms Chakrabarti was sat behind the Labour leader to his right, and was seen constantly making expressions and gestures which showed her supporting the Labour leader.
Ms Chakrabarti, who joined Labour on the day she was appointed to lead the inquiry, had previously denied that a peerage had been promised.
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