Diane Abbott denies Jeremy Corbyn “bought” Shami Chakrabarti with a peerage as MPs demand answers

ACCUSATIONS Shami Chakrabarti was “bought” with a peerage in order to write a “soft” report on anti-Semitism in the Labour Party are completely untrue, Diane Abbott has insisted.

But the party’s MPs are still demanding answers about when Jeremy Corbyn decided to appoint her as a Labour peer.

The Shadow Home Secretary strongly defended Ms Chakrabarti against accusations from some Jewish groups that the probe she produced shortly before becoming a Labour peer was a "whitewash".

Ms Abbott told ITV's Good Morning Britain that the Shadow Attorney General was the victim of a smear campaign.

"Shami has been offered peerages both by Gordon Brown, and I believe, by the Lib Dem leader.

“If she could be bought for a peerage she would have been bought years ago.

"She did a report that most people haven't read which actually has some tough recommendations for the party, and I think it's extraordinary she is being smeared in this way.

“If Shami could have been bought she would have been bought a long time ago."

At last night’s Parliamentary Labour Party meeting MPs wanted to know exactly when Mr Corbyn talked with Ms Chakrabarti about her appointment as a Labour peer.

They also raised their concerns about the way he responded to a damning report by the Home Affairs Select Committee report which blasted the party and said it had a problem with anti-Semitism.

During the meeting Wes Streeting wanted Mr Corbyn to tell the MPs when Baroness Chakrabarti was offered a peerage and end the rumours that she was offered it as part of an agreement to write the anti-Semitism report.

reports Mr Streeting called on Baroness Charabarti to explain in writing when she was offered a seat in the House of Lords and said: "The Home Affairs Select Committee asked a series of questions to Shami Chakrabarti who is now shadow attorney general which went unanswered.

"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 to the distress of many people across the country who are already deeply distressed by Labour's response to anti-Semitism.

"We need a discussion about our party's response to anti-Semitism at the Labour party level because I don't feel, and many of my Jewish members don't feel locally, that the Labour party's response has been good enough."

And Home Affairs Select Committee members Chuka Umunna and David Winnick spoke out about the way Mr Corbyn had responded to the report.

He had accused it of singling out Labour, saying: “The report’s political framing and disproportionate emphasis on Labour risks undermining the positive and welcome recommendations made in it."

Baroness Chakrabarti joined Labour when she took on the job of investigating anti-Semitism in the party, saying her conclusions would be taken more seriously as a member.

But critics claim Mr Corbyn offered her the honour before she published report, leading it to be a “whitewash”.

As well as talking about Baroness Chakrabarti, during her interview on Good Morning Britain Ms Abbott also expressed support for Lilly Allen after the singer was heavily criticised on social media for apologising "on behalf of my country" to a child migrant in the notorious Calais refugee camp known as the Jungle.

She also defended her decision to send her child to a fee-paying school, saying: "I sent my son to private school 14 years ago, he's now 24.

“If the schools in Hackney were as they are now, because under Labour we invested a lot of money in them, I would have no hesitation sending him to one of the excellent state schools in Hackney."