Shami Chakrabarti: I've had a horrible time over inquiry but I'd do it all again

Shami Chakrabarti has said that, if she was asked again, she would still carry out her inquiry into antisemitism in Labour - despite the criticism the review received.

Interviewed by Simon Johnson, chief executive of the Jewish Leadership Council, at a community event in Manchester, Ms Chakrabarti said: “It has not been the most pleasant summer of my life but you can’t run away from issues.

“I knew antisemitism on the left and in the Labour Party was a problem.

“It is something I have grown up with all my life living in North-West London.

“And that is why I said yes to do the inquiry in the first place and I would do it again.”

Mr Johnson pushed the former director of human rights group Liberty to answer questions about her integrity, after she accepted a peerage from Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn just five weeks after completing the inquiry.

He referred to comments made by Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, who said the credibility of her report "lies in tatters".

But Ms Chakrabarti defended her elevation to the House of Lords, saying it was unfair to label her report a “whitewash”.

She said: “I think I would ask people to read my report and engage with it.

“My independence comes from my personality and campaigning for human rights.”

She said accepting the peerage was not “a happy thing” for her because of the abuse she has experienced in the wake of it.

“I have had a lot of horrible things said about me.

“But I know what I want to do and what I want to achieve. I know when and why I accepted this, after I saw my country go into the chaos of Brexit and the Prime Minister resigned.

“I was approached to do this after the report.

“It has not been the happiest moment of my life but it hasn’t been the worst either and I am not a refugee drowning in the Mediterranean.

“So I will suck it up and do my best.”

More than 500 people attended the North-West Friends of Israel event, at Manchester's King David High School, on Sunday evening.

A visibly nervous Ms Chakrabarti told the audience her report, which made 20 recommendations to help Labour tackle antisemitism, had not yet been implemented by the party.

“Of course that is a great regret for me,” she said.

When asked why she did not make any reference in her report to evidence submitted by Joshua Simons, a former policy adviser in Mr Corbyn’s office, who said the leadership had a “at least a blind spot with antisemitism and at worst a wilful disregard for it”, Mrs Chakrabarti said it was a matter of confidentiality.

She said: “I have a bit of problem with this because a number of people were desperately concerned about their anonymity.

“I gave personal assurances not just in writing that I would never breach their confidence.

“They told me they do not want to be identified and they don’t want their confidence breached and you promised them you wouldn’t compromise their identity.

“So you tell me what the right thing to do is?

“My view is you give your word, you stand by your word even if it is not reciprocated.”

She told audience members antisemitic slurs had no place in the party's discourse and said the abusive term "Zio" was regularly cited by witnesses who gave evidence to the inquiry.

Ms Chakrabarti reiterated her objection to lifetime bans for party members found guilty of antisemitism because she believed people could change their minds.

“What can I tell you - I’m a bleeding-heart liberal at the end of the day and I think people need to have the chance to regret, change and do better,” she said.

She refused to comment on ongoing investigations into members such as Ken Livingstone, who have been suspended over claims of antisemitism.

Following the meeting, North-West Friends of Israel vice-chair Raphi Bloom said Ms Charabarti had been asked searching questions and answered honestly.

He said: “But I think the key thing is the Labour Party still hasn’t acted on the report and that is the biggest indictment of the current state of the Labour Party.

“Why not, when are they going to?”