A lawyer who was targeted by a Conservative party dossier sent to right-leaning newspapers has been forced to review her security after receiving an “ominous” email in the wake of critical articles, she has said.
Jacqueline McKenzie, the head of immigration at Leigh Day and a partner at the firm, said a briefing sent to the Telegraph, Mail, Sun and Express by party officials was “underpinned by racism and misogyny”, inaccurate and calculated to whip up ill-feeling.
In an article for the Guardian, McKenzie wrote: “The hit job on me was vile and self-serving, and put me and those close to me at considerable risk of physical harm. I’m having to take security advice and precautions, such is the seriousness of one email I received ...
“This flagrant attack on my rights, built on misinformation and mischaracterisation and underpinned by racism and misogyny, is a dark day for our political sphere. It represents a serious slur on the integrity and independence of thousands of hardworking and upstanding lawyers.”
McKenzie said she realised she was being targeted by the Tory party on Saturday when she was contacted by several newspapers asking for a response to the four-page briefing.
The party’s document, which had the heading, “Revealed: senior Labour advisor is lefty lawyer blocking Rwanda deportations”, sought to highlight McKenzie’s links to the party and her work on immigration cases, she said.
However, it did not mention that she had also advised and attended meetings with several Conservative ministers and spent “90%” of her time working on Windrush claims.
The Tory dossier said: “Just last year, she [McKenzie] helped a Jamaican criminal lodge last-minute appeal to deportation because of his high blood pressure. The foreign-born crook had just served an eight-year prison sentence for kidnapping.
“[Labour leader Keir] Starmer has been keen to distance himself from previous remarks and convince voters that he can be trusted on immigration.
“But his decision to hire lefty lawyer Jacqueline McKenzie is further proof that ‘Sir Softie’ can’t be trusted.”
In her article, McKenzie wrote that she had not been hired by Labour.
“I am an unpaid volunteer on a working group set up by Labour to look at race disparities across a number of indicators, just as the Conservatives did with the Sewell report.”
She added: “There was mention of a case in which I represented a Jamaican man who had lived in the UK from the age of nine and was facing deportation.”
The dossier and subsequent news articles came amid other criticisms of lawyers challenging the government’s right to put asylum seekers on the Bibby Stockholm, the barge in Portland, Dorset, she said.
“Judging by the vast amount of support I’ve received, not only from friends and colleagues, but from many strangers too, this government hit job has spectacularly backfired.”
A Conservative party spokesperson said: “It’s no secret that an activist blob of leftwing lawyers, dubious campaign groups and the Labour party are trying to frustrate our efforts to stop the boats and deport more foreign criminals.”
