The Prime Minister’s Jimmy Savile smear against Sir Keir Starmer had the potential to create “a violence of emotional reaction” and showed “a lack of respect” to the families of Savile’s victims, the widower of murdered Labour MP Jo Cox said.
Brendan Cox told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “When you throw around accusations of people protecting paedophiles or or not moving against paedophiles, it creates a viscerality of debate and a violence of emotional reaction.
“You’ve seen that in the US, the QAnon conspiracy theory there, initially on the margins, was then put into the centre of politics by Republicans and it led to violence – it led to people turning up in pizza parlours with automatic rifles.
“Now, our country is a very long way from that and the parallels you can’t draw directly across, but absolutely, when you throw around accusations of that moral character, it will have implications that I don’t think for a second that the Prime Minister was planning on, on stoking up that level of fury and anger.
“But I think you have a responsibility, when you’re the person in the highest office of the land, to be very careful about the language that you use.
“And also for the families involved, for the people who will be listening to this whose loved ones were abused by Jimmy Savile, a lack of respect for those individuals and the willingness to use it as a political tool, I think is something that does need to be questioned and challenged.”
Kim Leadbeater, the sister of Jo Cox who was murdered on June 16, 2016, said she was “incredibly angry” about the mob targeting Sir Keir Starmer and David Lammy.
In a pointed message to Boris Johnson she said “words have consequences, leaders have a duty to behave responsibly”.
Labour MP Ms Leadbeater said on Twitter: “I’m incredibly angry & upset by the scenes we saw yesterday.
“I keep thinking about Keir & David’s families & friends. But these things don’t just happen.
“Words have consequences, leaders have a duty to behave responsibly & politics is not a game. Our country deserves far better.”
The Prime Minister is facing fresh calls to apologise for his widely discredited claim that the Labour leader failed to prosecute Jimmy Savile, after the demonstrators accused Sir Keir of “protecting paedophiles”.
The BBC is reporting that Mr Johnson is not going to apologise over the comments he made in the House of Commons.
