“False”, “baseless” and “desperate” is how even Conservative MPs have described Boris Johnson’s incorrect claim that Sir Keir Starmer failed to prosecute Jimmy Savile.

Now research shared exclusively with i shows how the idea was widely popularised by a far-right fake news website before being spread by the likes of “Tommy Robinson” before becoming “cited as fact” by extremists.

Hope Not Hate, which carried out the research, said it was “very disturbing” to see the Prime Minister repeat what is essentially a “conspiracy theory favoured by the far-right” as he attempted to answer questions on the “Partygate” scandal in the Commons.

What is the claim and why is it false?

Under the legal protection of parliamentary privilege on Monday, Mr Johnson said Sir Keir, as Director of Public Prosecutions between 2008 and 2013, had “spent most of his time… failing to prosecute Jimmy Savile”.

In 2020, fact-checking charity Full Fact looked into the claim that Sir Keir had stopped Savile being charged in 2009.

It said allegations against the child sex abuser were dealt with by local police and a reviewing lawyer for the Crown Prosecution Service, which was criticised alongside officers.

But a later investigation “did not suggest that Sir Keir was personally involved in the decisions made”, Full Fact said.

So how did the false claim start spreading a decade or so later?

Hope Not Hate said a 2018 article by right-wing political website Guido Fawkes was the likely “origin” of allegations...

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