Sir Keir Starmer has vowed to “talk” to Baroness Shami Chakrabarti over claims she is working on a legal case to get Jeremy Corbyn’s suspension revoked.
Mr Corbyn was suspended by the party for saying in response the EHRC report that antisemitism in the party had been “dramatically overstated for political reasons”.
The Labour leader said that a spate of legal challenges over the decision to suspend Mr Corbyn would risk undermining his party’s local election campaign at next May’s local elections.
Speaking to LBC’s Nick Ferrari, Sir Keir said: “I don’t think anybody wants to see yet more legal cases. I want to see the Labour Party focused on campaigning to win elections.
“We have got a massive set of elections next May, we have got a general election in 2024. We absolutely have to be focused on that. I don’t want to see any Labour Party money or time tied up with yet more legal cases. I will talk to Shami about this when I next see her.”
A report last weekend had claimed Baroness Chakrabarti and Unite’s legal chief Howard Beckett were helping the former leader to develop his strategy in challenging the suspension.
The Labour leader told the radio show he had made it clear he had set out to “bring unity” to the party rather than “factional fighting”.
But he said that on antisemitism he was prepared to take action against those who also “pretend it exaggerated, it doesn’t really exist.. it’s only factional.”
Sir Keir also said it had not been a “political decision” by general secretary David Evans to suspend Mr Corbyn. And he made clear he strongly supported the action against his predecessor.
“It is quite something when an Equality and Human Rights Commission, which was set up by a Labour government, finds the Labour Party in breach of the law that the Labour government passed,” he said.
“In those circumstances I think it is very important to take tough decisions. It wasn’t a political decision. It was the decision of the General Secretary.”
Sir Keir told Mr Ferrari he was committed to putting in place measures to implement the commission’s recommendations by the December 10 deadline.
“We have been anticipating this report. We have done quite a lot of the hard work already. We will hand that plan on time to commission and then I hope we can sign it off and start working to it,” he said.
“I think what those who were most pained by our failure to deal with antisemitism want is an honest acknowledgement by the Labour Party of the scale of the problem and to see us committed to changing it.
“That is the commitment I will give and I will deliver on.”
