During her thirteen years as director of a prominent British civil-liberties organization, Shami Chakrabarti never gave the impression “that she had any solution to the problem of Islamic terror—or even that she viewed it as particularly perilous,” writes Jonathan Neumann. She left that position earlier this year to chair the Labor party’s inquiry into anti-Semitism in its ranks, producing a report incapable even of acknowledging the pervasiveness of the disease. And then, Neumann writes, there is also the appearance of impropriety:
To remind you of the chronology: Labor’s Baroness Royall was tasked with investigating anti-Semitism at the Oxford University Labor Club after one of its chairs resigned in disgust at the club’s “problem with Jews.” The party leadership suppressed Royall’s report, and invited Chakrabarti to produce a more wide-ranging one on anti-Semitism “and other forms of racism” within the Labor party. This report was meant to be independent, but, for reasons that would soon become clear, Chakrabarti decided to join the party beforehand. Royall was enlisted as a deputy to this new inquiry, which, it was anticipated, would incorporate her report in full. It did not.
Chakrabarti defended the decision by noting that Royall’s report referenced individual students, whose names it wouldn’t be appropriate to publish. Royall, by now regally fed up, leaked her report. The only student mentioned by name was the one whose resignation prompted the report in the first place.
The Chakrabarti inquiry declared that Labor was “not overrun by anti-Semitism,” a conclusion undermined by the report’s release at a chaotic press conference that saw the party leader compare the Jewish state to Islamic State and one of his . . . lackeys oblige a Jewish Labor MP to leave the room in tears—all while [Jeremy] Corbyn and [Chakrabarti] delivered their remarks behind a sign saying “Standing Up Not Standing By.” The report was a whitewash.
Following a cringe-worthy interview on a Jewish channel where Chakrabarti childishly evaded questions about whether she had been offered a peerage, it was announced that she was indeed receiving one. From Jeremy Corbyn. Who had said he wouldn’t be nominating anyone to the Lords.
Read more on Standpoint: http://www.standpointmag.co.uk/node/6584/full