KEIR Starmer’s resignation would not necessitate the exit of the Prime Minister from Downing Street, a Tory minister has insisted.
The Labour leader announced on Monday that he will resign if he is fined by police over alleged lockdown rule-breaking. Starmer said he would do the “right thing” if he was issued with a fixed penalty notice in relation to a gathering in Labour offices in Durham in April last year.
The move has been viewed as a huge gamble, with the party chief placing his future in the hands of Durham Police after it was announced last week officers would reopen an investigation into the event where he drank beer and ate curry.
Boris Johnson, meanwhile, has refused to quit after being fined by the Met Police over a gathering in No 10 in June 2020 to mark his 56th birthday, with further fixed penalty notices possibly on the way.
Policing minister Kit Malthouse insisted a resignation by Starmer would not mean the Tory leader should also step down.
When it was suggested to him that if the Labour chief is fined and does resign, it would mean Johnson should follow suit, he told LBC: “Not necessarily, no.”
Malthouse added: “Obviously in any situation where, you know, the rules were moving around, there were misunderstandings or mistakes were made, and apologies are made and they are accepted, then people of all walks of life should be able to keep their jobs.
“But Keir Starmer has to speak for himself and set his own standards.”
Asked if the Labour leader is right to say he would step down, Malthouse later told GB News: “That’s a matter for him. Look, my view is that this was a very difficult situation with complicated rules that were often changing quite quickly.
“Mistakes were made and they’re acknowledged and fixed penalty notices are paid.
“I don’t see why anybody, be they so high or so humble, should lose their job.”
'I don't see why anybody, be they so high or so humble should lose their job.' Kit Malthouse MP discusses the future of Keir Starmer's career amid the investigation over beergate. 📺 Freeview 236, Sky 515, Virgin 626 🖥 GB News on YouTube https://t.co/Wa58gYGZwF pic.twitter.com/6hXWCqWWEI
— GB News (@GBNEWS) May 10, 2022
Labour’s shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson described Starmer as “a man of integrity and a man of decency, unlike the Prime Minister who has been found to have broken the law and still clings on at Number 10”.
She told Sky News: “We maintain that nothing was done that was inconsistent with the rules. He was there working. He had some food as part of that working day. That really is it.”
Phillipson said people were “allowed to eat” as part of a working day under the lockdown rules.
Labour sources are confident they can prove the Durham event was a work event and that those present were taking a break to eat while working late on preparations for the Hartlepool by-election.
The party has compiled time-stamped logs from WhatsApp chats, documents and video edits, showing they carried on working after the takeaway was delivered – continuing to 1am, The Guardian reported.
A party source said: “We have been totally clear that no rules were broken. We will provide documentary evidence that people were working before and after stopping to have food.”
Having repeatedly called for Johnson to go for breaking the law, many at Westminster believed Starmer would have no choice but to fall on his sword if he was found to have done so himself.
Deputy leader Angela Rayner – who was also present – has said she too would stand down if she is fined.
One government minister accused Starmer of “attempting to pressure the police into clearing him” by making clear a fine would spell the end of his leadership.
Tech minister Chris Philp said the Labour leader’s statement was “deeply inappropriate”.
Former director of public prosecutions Lord Ken Macdonald has said suggestions that Durham Police – the same force that looked into Dominic Cummings' infamous trip to Barnard Castle – will be pressured in their investigation of Starmer were “wide of the mark”.
The crossbench peer told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I think that’s wide of the mark, actually.
“My experience of working with the police in very sensitive cases under full glare of public and press interest was that, very quickly, you find your focus taking over and, in a sense, a sort of bloody-mindedness creeps in: ‘This is my case and I’ll decided it, thank you very much, without any help from you.’ “So, that sort of pressure actually becomes, in my experience, reinforcing of independence, which I’m sure is what we want.
“I don’t think Durham Police will be troubled at all by that sort of aspect.”
