- Thursday, April 25, 2024
By: Keerthi Mohan
LABOUR shadow minister Shami Chakrabarti has sparked fury among BBC News viewers for claiming that a former aide of chancellor Sajid Javid was removed from Downing Street “at gunpoint.”
Appearing on BBC Breakfast on Tuesday (3) to discuss Labour’s plans to prevent a no-deal Brexit, Chakrabarti launched an attacked on prime minister Boris Johnson and his team.
Chakrabarti said of the government: “We are dealing with people who are prepared to shut down Parliament, we are dealing with people who will march a young woman out of Number 10 at gunpoint, so we are not dealing with anything that I’ve seen before in my working lifetime.”
When asked to clarify her “gunpoint” comments, she replied: “I believe that the people who are currently in Number 10 are a bunch of thugs with no respect for decency for courtesy or the rule of law.
“There were reports of a young Conservative worker, a woman, who was escorted out of the building by an armed police officer.”
Chakrabarti was referring to the case of Javid’s former aide Sonia Khan being escorted out of Downing Street for allegedly leaking no-deal Brexit documents.
The Labour frontbencher added: “The reason why this is a little confusing is we are not dealing with normal people, with normal respect of Parliament or the law.
“We have to be nimble in response and we are trying to do that working across parties in the House of Commons.”
Viewers have slammed Chakrabarti for “twisted” and “over the top” claims.
Writing on Twitter, one person said: “Baroness Chakrabarti seemed very uneasy when asked to clarify where that was reported. Misquoted words can be very dangerous.”
Another wrote: “Ms Chakrabarti’s conduct was appalling this morning. She should have been challenged over her language and choice of words. To say a former employee was led away at gun point by a police office was disgraceful. Every police officer at No10 is armed.”
