Richard Madeley was in hot water with Good Morning Britain viewers after comments made on today's show.
The 65-year-old broadcaster anchored Tuesday's edition of the ITV news programme alongside Susanna Reid.
The two interviewed Shadow Mental Health Minister Dr Roseana Allin-Khan and addressed footage that emerged yesterday of a group targeting Sir Keir Starmer.
READ MORE: ITV Good Morning Britain viewers switch off over Richard Madeley's comments
The mob echoed discredited smears made by Boris Johnson that linked the Labour leader to Jimmy Savile, which has prompted furious MPs to call on the Prime Minister to publicly retract his statement.
Dr Allin-Khan said: "If Boris Johnson is truly sorry about what happened, he needs to come to Parliament and apologise unreservedly like so many of his MPs are asking him to do.
"Words really matter and I think nobody really wants to see what happened yesterday happen to any MP of any political party.
"It's dangerous and it's damaging and I think it really disturbs people to see it."
However, viewers were furious when Richard Madeley repeated the discredited claim.
He said: "You don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to know that the failure to prosecute Jimmy Savile, which was a terrible mistake, did happen on Keir Starmer's watch when he was running the DPP. You don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to think that."
The Shadow Mental Health Minister said the smear is a deflection from the Prime Minister.
She said: "Come on Richard. We all know that this is just a deep deflection from what Boris Johnson is trying to do. We come into politics to serve the public.
"Boris Johnson came into politics to serve himself and there is no barrel that he won't scrape to try and smear people in his way."
Viewers following the show on Twitter took to the social media platform to criticise the broadcaster over the comments.
Anne said: "Did Richard Madeley just say that? - ‘it doesn’t take a conspiracy theorist to know that it happened on his watch'?"
Warren added: "Is Richard Madeley really pushing that Starmer was responsible for Savile not being prosecuted?? Come on GMB do better please"
Richard tweeted : "Richard Madeley's line of questioning here is a disgrace. Get rid."
One user said: "GMB news needs to apologise and clarify Richard Madeley’s remarks immediately. He just repeated and affirmed the lie that caused the attack on prime time TV"
ITV has been approached for comment
Good Morning Britain airs weekdays from 6am on ITV and the ITV Hub.
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