Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has said that the 'curry and beer gathering' which took place during lockdown and currently under investigation by the police was held for work purposes and did not breach any coronavirus rules. Sir Keir appeared on Loose Women today and spoke about the reinvestigation into Beergate and revealed he will step down as the leader of the Labour Party if it is ruled he was in the wrong.
Ruth Langsford asked Sir Keir about a recent poll where 63 per cent of voters branded him a hypocrite, after he called for Boris Johnson to resign for misleading MPs over Downing Street parties. Sir Keir said, “I think the big difference is that I’ve been very clear I haven’t broken the rules, but equally I’ve said that if the police do issue me with a fixed penalty notice, I will do the right thing and I will step down.
"So I’ve put everything on the line because I think that’s the right thing to do - that is the complete opposite of the Prime Minister, who has already been found to be breaking the rules.” On calling for Mr Johnson’s resignation before a police investigation began, Sir Keir said: “By then we already knew there was industrial-scale rule-breaking in Downing Street. We’d had so many examples, including the example of the suitcase of booze coming in on the eve of Prince Phillip’s funeral, so it was a completely different situation.”
