Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has called for an end to the "misogynistic" culture at Westminster after he slammed reports made about his deputy Angela Rayner in the Mail on Sunday.
The Ashton-under-Lyne MP was accused by an unnamed Tory MP of trying to distract Boris Johnson at Prime Minister's Questions by crossing and uncrossing her legs on the Labour front bench. The paper likened the claims to a scene from the 1992 erotic thriller Basic Instinct and said she was trying to put the PM "off his stride."
In response to the story, Sir Keir told ITV's This Morning there would be "zero tolerance" for such attitudes in his own party. "It is rank sexism, rank misogyny," he said.
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"She was really disgusted that all of her political attributes were put aside for this ridiculous, offensive story. She shouldn’t have to put up with it but all women in politics shouldn’t have to put up with it. Almost every woman in politics has had an element of this in some shape or form.
"We have got to change the culture. The culture in Parliament, it is sexist, it is misogynist. We need to change it. That is what Angela said to me. She used this expression, she said 'It triggered something in me about the way women are seen in politics.'"
He added: "I need to look at it within my own party wherever we see it. We will be absolutely on it with zero tolerance. There shouldn’t be a party political divide on this."
On Sunday, Ms Rayner called the story "desperate" and "perverted" and quickly received solidarity from across the House of Commons for the "smear." The Prime Minister was among those to publicly condemn the claims on Twitter.
"As much as I disagree with (Ms) Rayner on almost every political issue I respect her as a parliamentarian and deplore the misogyny directed at her anonymously," he wrote.
Mr Johnson has since written to her to insist "misogynistic" claims were not in his name. According to the Daily Telegraph, the Prime Minister sent the deputy Labour leader a letter on Sunday in response.
Mr Johnson reportedly moved to assure Ms Rayner in the private letter that the comments were "not in his name", expressing his sympathy over the anonymous attack.
On Sunday evening, the Tory chairman of Parliament’s Women and Equalities Committee, Caroline Nokes, revealed she had written to Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Commons Speaker, to suggest the journalist who wrote the story be formally censured.
Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves said the "outrageous" claims about the Labour deputy leader shine a spotlight on other female MPs’ experiences of sexism and misogyny.
She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: "I am sick and tired of the way that female MPs and women are treated in Parliament, and if this story, this outrageous slur on Angela gets change, that would be a good thing."
She did not push for the Tory MP responsible for making the claims to be identified, but said the Conservative Party should be "talking long and hard to their MPs about what sort of things they should be saying and briefing to journalists."
Ms Reeves declined to say if Labour would complain to the Independent Press Standards Organisation about the report in the Mail on Sunday.
