Police to Consider Tory MP’s Request to Review Allegations of Keir Starmer Breaking COVID Rules
06:00 GMT 28.04.2022 (Updated: 15:19 GMT 28.05.2023)
© AP Photo / Alastair Grant
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In February, Durham police decided not to open a probe after reviewing last year’s video of Keir Starmer “drinking and socialising” at an MP’s office while COVID lockdown rules banned households from mixing indoors at the time. The police said they did not believe any offence had been committed by Starmer during what he called a work meeting.
Durham Constabulary have pledged to consider a request from Tory MP Richard Holden to launch a full-fledged probe into allegations that UK Labour Party leader Keir Starmer broke coronavirus lockdown rules in 2021.
The police previously said they did not believe an offence was committed in April 2021, when Starmer was filmed having a bottle of beer in the office of City of Durham MP Mary Foy in the run-up to the Hartlepool by-election.
Holden shared on Wednesday a letter from the Durham force’s deputy chief constable on his Twitter page, in which the police officer vowed that he “will make inquiries with the investigation team and will update” the lawmaker “at the point at which” he has “been able to conclude those inquiries”.
Holden then tweeted that police had the door open to “re-examining the [Starmer] case”.
A spokesperson for Durham Constabulary, in turn, said that they “were sent a letter by MP Richard Holden on 22 April”, which urged the police to review their controversial decision that cleared the Labour leader. The spokesman added that “as a courtesy, we have replied to Mr Holden to confirm we have received that letter and will consider its contents before responding in due course.”
7 February 2022, 07:51 GMT
Labour responded by claiming that it was wrong to perceive the deputy chief constable’s letter as suggesting an investigation into whether Starmer broke coronavirus rules was being re-examined.
A spokesman for the party told reporters that he thinks “some of the characterisation of the letter has been inaccurate”. When asked the police are in the process of “re-examining” the investigation, the spokesman said that he “wouldn’t characterise the letter in that way”. He also reiterated Starmer’s previous claims that the 2021 gathering at the Mar Foy office was a “work event”.
The developments come after senior Tory members called for a full probe into Starmer’s conduct, arguing that there appeared to be no difference between the event that he attended and the 2020 Downing Street “birthday party”, for which Prime Minister Boris Johnson was fined £50 by the Metropolitan Police earlier this month.
Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries asserted that the Labour leader “has used every trick in the book to attack the PM over his handling of events in No 10, yet he doesn’t want to be held to the same standard the PM has subjected himself to”.
Dorries slammed Starmer as “a hypocrite who should fess up to what really happened in Durham and explain why he thinks it’s any different to the hyperbole he levelled at the PM”. Pressing Durham Constabulary to launch a full inquiry, she underscored t “a lack of consistency in interpretation of the regulations needs examining – urgently”.
Holden, for his part, pointed out that “No one, not even Starmer himself can explain the difference between what he was doing and what he’s been slamming the Prime Minister for”. According to the MP, “it’s time Starmer came clean. The British people deserve to know the facts from someone who aspires to be our PM, not hear more weasel words from a man who spent his life as a high-end London lawyer”.
29 January 2022, 15:43 GMT
He was echoed by an unnamed senior government source who was cited by the Daily Mail as saying that “by his own admission, Keir Starmer was not working while he was boozing inside with his friends”.
According to the source, “he [Starmer] says this was between meetings so assuming this is true, there is absolutely no difference between this and what happened in Downing Street on the PM’s birthday. The rules applied to the whole country so Durham police must take the same approach as the Met and open a criminal investigation into this event”.
After the footage of Starmer “drinking” and “socialising” was first published in the Daily Mail in April 2021, he argued that “it was perfectly lawful to meet for work” at a time when the country was in the second stage of the road-map out of the third COVID lockdown.
Earlier in April, the Labour leader was at the helm of the chorus of disapproval as he insisted that Prime Minister Johnson “misled” parliament over “partygate”. Starmer described Johnson as “a man without shame” during an exchange in the Commons, as Johnson early last week addressed MPs for the first time since receiving his Scotland Yard fine.
The PM said at the time that it had not occurred to him that the social gathering in June 2020 was a breach of coronavirus rules. However, the Labour leader accused BoJo of dishonesty and failure to “respect the sacrifice of the British public”.
