Johnson comes under fresh pressure to withdraw slur on Starmer

Boris Johnson came under renewed pressure to withdraw a slur linking Keir Starmer to the failure to prosecute Jimmy Savile after police had to rescue the Labour leader from a mob repeating the claims.

Police said they arrested two people after a crowd surrounded Sir Keir near the Houses of Parliament, shouting anti-vaccination slogans, calling him a traitor and accusing him of protecting paedophiles.

“Shortly after 5.10pm on Monday, February 7th, a man who had been surrounded by a group of protesters near to New Scotland Yard, was taken away from the scene by a police car. A man and a woman were arrested at the scene for assault of an emergency worker after a traffic cone was thrown at a police officer. They have been taken into custody,” the Metropolitan Police said in a statement.

Labour’s Chris Bryant blamed the prime minister, who said in parliament last week that Sir Keir had spent his time as director of public prosecutions arresting journalists rather than prosecuting Savile for his crimes.

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“This is appalling. People were shouting all sorts at Keir, including ‘Jimmy Savile’. This is what happens when a prime minister descends into the gutter and recycles lies from hard-right conspiracy theorists. Political poison has an effect. Johnson has no moral compass,” Mr Bryant tweeted.

“This was incited by the prime minister. It was the inevitable conclusion of his deliberate lies.”

Former Northern Ireland secretary Julian Smith, who served as Conservative chief whip under Theresa May, said the prime minister should withdraw his smear against Sir Keir.

“What happened to Keir Starmer tonight outside parliament is appalling. It is really important for our democracy and for his security that the false Savile slurs made against him are withdrawn in full,” he said.

Taking the knee

Mr Johnson’s long-serving policy adviser Munira Mirza resigned last week after the prime minister refused to apologise for smearing Sir Keir.

Chancellor of the exchequer Rishi Sunak and health secretary Sajid Javid distanced themselves from the prime minister’s words but other ministers have defended him.

Earlier on Monday, the new Downing Street director of communications said that Mr Johnson was not “a complete clown”, revealing that the prime minister sang I Will Survive when asked if he would keep his job.

Guto Harri, a former BBC journalist who worked with Mr Johnson when he was mayor of London, told Welsh language website Golwg360 that he met Mr Johnson to discuss taking the job last Friday evening.

“I walked in and did a salute and said ‘prime minister, Guto Harri reporting for duty’ and he stood up from behind his desk and started taking the salute but then he said: ‘What am I doing, I should take the knee for you’,” Mr Harri said, referring to his own suspension from the right-wing TV channel GB News for taking the knee on air.

“And we both laughed. Then I asked: ‘Are you going to survive Boris?’ And he said in his deep, slow and purposeful voice and started to sing a little while finishing the sentence and saying ‘I Will Survive’. I inevitably invited him to say ‘You’ve got all your life to live’ and he replied: ‘I’ve got all my love to give’, so we had a little blast from Gloria Gaynor.

“No one expects that, but it was. There was a lot of laughter and we sat down to have a serious conversation about how to get the government back on track and how we are moving forward.”