Boris Johnson has resisted mounting calls from MPs within his own party to apologise for the Jimmy Savile smear made against Sir Keir Starmer, after the Labour leader was bundled into a police car for protection near Parliament on Monday.
Senior Tories, including a former Cabinet minister, have urged the prime minister to withdraw the comments and say sorry.
However, technology minister Chris Philp insisted Mr Johnson could not be held responsible for the actions of the demonstrators.
“I don’t think you can point to what the Prime Minister said as the cause of that. You certainly can’t blame him for the fact that that mob were clearly behaving in a totally unacceptable way,” he said. “You certainly can’t say that what he said in any way prompted, provoked or justified the harassment and intimidation we saw last night.”
On Monday evening Metropolitan Police officers stepped in to protect the Labour leader as a group followed him and shadow foreign secretary David Lammy near parliament.
