Keir Starmer is facing calls to defend the legal profession against government attacks on “lefty lawyers”, amid further concerns for the safety of an immigration solicitor subjected to a “targeted campaign” by the Conservative party.
Martin Forde KC, the senior lawyer commissioned by Starmer to investigate the Labour party’s culture, said legal professionals from across the political spectrum had expressed their bewilderment that the Labour leader had not said anything after such personal attacks, even after former Conservative law officers criticised the political rhetoric aimed at “lefty lawyers” on Friday.
Jacqueline McKenzie has received a torrent of abuse since CCHQ circulated a dossier last week. She told the Guardian people had threatened to drown her “like an asylum seeker” and leave corpses at her property.
The dossier prompted Nick Vineall KC, the chair of the Bar Council, and Lubna Shuja, the president of the Law Society, to make a rare joint statement condemning the Tories’ behaviour in sending out the document titled “Revealed: senior Labour adviser is lefty lawyer blocking Rwanda deportations”.
“I am concerned for her personal safety,” Forde said. “She’s an excellent lawyer who is well regarded across the board. She has worked incredibly hard on Windrush, working all kinds of hours, especially in the early hours of the morning, working for nothing. To hear her say she’s scared to walk home from the railway station is appalling.”
Forde added: “My legal colleagues have expressed disappointment to me that Keir Starmer, as a lawyer, is yet to make a statement defending Jacqueline. They have expressed bewilderment that there hasn’t even been a strong statement from the party.”
The Labour leader worked as the director of public prosecutions before he won a selection battle for the Holborn and St Pancras seat that was vacated by Frank Dobson after 34 years.
The Guardian understands two other members of the shadow cabinet contacted McKenzie on the day the dossier was circulated in solidarity, with senior insiders leaping to McKenzie’s defence when approached by the rightwing newspapers.
“Lawyers of all political persuasions deplore the government’s attacks on lawyers who are just doing their jobs,” Forde said. “This is a fundamental assault on the rule of law and unprecedented in my experience. It suggests if a lawyer is involved in a case that challenges the government they are automatically deemed a lefty lawyer.”
He added: “Alex Chalk’s failure to denounce this clearly shows the problem of judges and lawyers not having an independent lord chancellor rather than subsuming the role into the Ministry of Justice.”
Questioning why she was the subject of the CCHQ dossier, McKenzie said: “Whenever I volunteered for Labour there have only ever been white male lawyers in suits. Why didn’t the Conservative party target them?”
Reflecting on Starmer’s perceived silence on the issue, she added: “I’ve been quite surprised and disappointed. Two days after the attacks went public I received a message from the party chair and [the] shadow women and equalities minister, Anneliese Dodds, who was apologetic as she’d been on holiday.”
Forde was critical of the language the Conservatives have used about asylum seekers. He said: “It’s also depressing that the Conservatives’ false rhetoric around asylum seekers’ requirement to stay in France instead of seeking safety in this country, and people being economic migrants is being adopted by the public when the former is not the law and the latter is mainly untrue. These people are fleeing war and oppression on the whole.”
