UK Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer could face a fresh police inquiry for chugging beer with colleagues during the COVID-19 lockdown, reported the Daily Mail.
As Scotland Yard issues a flurry of fixed penalty notices - fines - to politicians and officials for breaking COVID-19 lockdown laws in Downing Street and Whitehall, Richard Holden, Tory MP for North West Durham, believes that Starmer’s case should be re-evaluated. In photos that re-emerged in January 2022, Starmer was shown drinking a beer with staff in the office of City of Durham MP Mary Foy last April.
The footage, originally published in spring 2021, had been taken through the window of a building in Durham in the run-up to the Hartlepool by-election. Starmer can be seen holding a bottle of beer while standing close to two people, with two more individuals in the background, at a time when strict coronavirus lockdown rules banned indoor mixing between different households. The sole exception was work purposes.
Durham Constabulary had confirmed in February 2022 that it did not believe an offence was committed after reviewing the afore-mentioned footage of the Labour leader.
However, the “partygate” row has been gaining fresh traction since PM Boris Johnson, together with his wife Carrie and Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak received Fixed Penalty Notices from the Metropolitan Police. The fines of £50 each were issued because of a surprise birthday party for the Prime Minister in the Cabinet Room in June 2020 that was judged to have breached COVID-19 lockdown restrictions. More penalties are expected to be issued next month.
According to Richard Holden, there is strong public interest in reviewing the case against Keir Starmer.
“I do not believe the photographed activity meets the “functional but not social” test in the guidance on political campaigning in campaign rooms,” Holden wrote to Durham’s Chief Constable, Jo Farrell, reported the Daily Mail.
After the footage was first published in the Daily Mail, Starmer 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 lockdown.
“I was in a constituency office just days before the election. We were very busy, We were working in the office. We stopped for something to eat and then we carried on working. No party, no breach of the rules and absolutely no comparison with the Prime Minister,” he told the BBC’s Sunday Morning programme, referencing Downing Street’s now infamous “bring your own booze” party on 20 May 2020.
There has not yet been any official comment from either the UK Labour party or Durham Constabulary.
Starmer has led the chorus of disapproval insisting that the Prime Minister “misled” parliament over “partygate”. The Labour leader called Johnson “a man without shame” during an exchange in the Commons, as Johnson addressed MPs for the first time since receiving his Scotland Yard fine.
Johnson said it had not occurred to him that the gathering in June 2020 was a breach of coronavirus rules. However, the Labour leader accused the PM of dishonesty and failure to “respect the sacrifice of the British public”.
The UK parliament has since announced an investigation to determine whether Johnson misled MPs over his involvement in lockdown parties held in Downing Street. The push for what is now the third “partygate” inquiry was led by the Labour Party, with the MPs greenlighting the motion on 21 April.