Shami Chakrabarti has called on Labour chiefs to reach a decision on whether Ken Livingstone should be allowed to re-join the party following his suspension over remarks he made about Adolf Hitler.

The Shadow Attorney General said the situation should not be allowed to "linger" any longer.

Mr Livingstone was suspended last April after he evoked the memory of the former Nazi leader while trying to defend a Labour MP accused of anti-Semitism.

He insisted Hitler had supported the creation of a Jewish state in 1932 "before he went mad and murdered six million Jews".

Baroness Chakrabarti, who chaired the party’s internal probe into anti-Semitism, was asked about Mr Livingstone's situation during a question and answer session at the Oxford Union in November, a video of which was released yesterday.

She said: "I understand the reason for your question, because time marches on. But you must address your question to the general secretary of the Labour party and the disciplinary process.”

When pressed whether she supported the party’s initial action against Mr Livingstone, she replied: “It’s not for me to, I mean… yes, I agree with the suspension. But do you know what; I don’t think you really want me to undermine this due process.

“I think that there’s a case to answer, let’s put it like that. And I think that this should not linger. If I will say one new thing… justice delayed is not a good thing, either, and nobody should have these things hanging over for too long.

"And it’s not in the interests of any individual or the party, or of any institution to leave these things pending for too long. So I hope that that will be dealt with.”

A Labour spokesperson told PoliticsHome: “We don’t comment on individuals’ membership status”.

Britain’s Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis was among those to last year call for Mr Livingstone to be expelled from the Labour party.

OXFORD UNIVERSITY LABOUR CLUB

A separate probe by Labour peer Baroness Royall in August found there were instances of discrimination against Jewish students at the Oxford University Labour Club.

During an often fractious appearance before the Oxford Union, Baroness Chakrabarti defended failing to refer to the university in her report, arguing “the world is bigger even than this place” and stressing the work done by Baroness Royall.

“Jan Royall, my colleague… did the project on the Oxford Labour club, and her work is now in the public domain,” she said.

“And I benefited a great deal from her understanding of campus life, but you’ll forgive me, it’s lovely when one sits here to think that this is the world, but the world is bigger even than this place.

“And the Labour party and the country is bigger even than this place. So I think we learnt a lot, I felt that I learnt a lot from conversations with her about internet abuse, about the student experience, but in the case of my report it wasn’t just about Oxford. It was about the broader party.”

When challenged further, the frontbencher said no university or individual was named in her report, before adding: “What we’ve tried to do is to talk about cultures and behaviours that are actually applicable whether they’re here, or on another campus. My understanding is that some of the issues that arose here arose on campuses around the country.

“There was no need in my broader thematic report to pick on this campus, or that campus, or this individual or that individual.

“What we needed to isolate and articulate was the kind of language and behaviour that is unacceptable anywhere in pretty clear terms, so that the party can then take the conclusions of the report that are numbered one to 30, and implement them and not get upset about whether it’s Oxford, or Cambridge or anywhere else.”

PEERAGE

Jeremy Corbyn put forward the human rights campaigner for a peerage after she concluded her review into anti-Semitism within Labour - prompting a furious backlash.

When asked about the appointment and the controversy it provoked, Baroness Chakrabarti replied:

“I think we disagree about this, Noah [Lachs, Oxford Student Union president]. And I think I’ve said everything that I want to say about this.

“I am not in the business of lashing out at people who question my good faith. I think I will leave it where it is.”

You can see the full Q&A below: