The elevation to the peerage of Shami Chakrabarti has gone down particularly badly with some in the House of Lords.
Labour peer Lord Mitchell, a former shadow minister who is Jewish, says he will resign if Corbyn wins the latest Labour leadership contest.
Having written a letter to the Times today to that effect, Mitchell told Heat Street this morning: “It appears Corbyn will win. The moment he does, I will resign and either become a crossbencher or an Independent Labour peer, I haven’t decided which. I will not be joining another party, but I will be seeking a new home, as it were.”
He added that he met Chakrabarti in June.
“She came to the House of Lords and we had a cup of tea on the terrace,” he said. “I realise now she was probably eyeing up the place in preparation for taking her seat.
“Having been the chairman of the CoExistence Trust until 2012, which aims to improve relations between Jewish and Muslim students at British universities, I was keen to talk to her about her antisemitism report, which she was working on at that point. She told me it would be fast and hard-hitting. Well, she met her deadline, but what she produced was a whitewash.”
How many more defections like Mitchell’s will there be?
