Leftist Labour leader Keir Starmer has turned up the pressure on the government over rule breaches in recent weeks but no apology was forthcoming when he was accused of breaking the same regulations.
Keir Starmer, the head of the UK’s leftist Labour party — despite being pressured — refused to apologise for his own breach of lockdown rules on Monday, instead opting to deflect to the transgressions of embattled PM Boris Johnson.
Starmer has been labelled a hypocrite after his criticisms of the prime minister — who is accused of attending a number of lockdown breaking bashes during a period of lockdown in 2020 — due to a picture emerging last Thursday appearing to show the Labour head breaking lockdown rules himself.
When asked about the image during an interview with LBC on Monday, instead of apologising, the left-wing leader doubled down on attacking the Conservative party over Johnson’s alleged breaches.
“There comes a point where the Tories try to take everybody into the gutter with them,” Starmer told Nick Ferrari on the London radio station. “That’s what’s happening here.”
He also defended his own previous actions, claiming that what was being pictured was not a breach of COVID rules.
“We were working in the office and a takeaway turned up and we stopped and we ate it,” Starmer said. “There was no breach of the rules, no party, no comparison with the PM.”
“The PM is facing allegations of multiple parties,” he continued. “There is simply no comparison.”
A number of politicians and pundits have lambasted Keir Starmer over his actions over lockdown.
Bow Group head Ben Harris-Quinney called the labour head a “hypocrite” over his actions, while Darren Grimes, director of online conservative channel Reasoned said that Starmer had been caught “exactly the same thing” as the prime minister.
However, despite criticism, Starmer stuck to his guns and heaped criticism on his political opponents for doing the same things he now stands accused of doing himself.
Referencing an ongoing investigation into the so-called “partygate” gatherings, Starmer said that the public has already decided that Johnson is guilty of something that is “a million miles away” from his own actions.
“I don’t think the public are waiting for a Sue Gray report to make their mind up,” Starmer said. “We [politicians] are waiting for the Sue Gray report but I think the public’s made its mind up.”
“…There’s anger at the Prime Minister, there’s actually ridicule – people are joking about it – and once the country is no longer laughing with you, but laughing at you, you really are in a bad place as Prime Minister,” the labour leader concluded.