Keir Starmer has defended Labour’s determination to keep pressing the prime minister over parties in Downing Street during Covid lockdowns, saying even Conservative MPs were “sick of defending the indefensible”.
Challenged about whether he had focused too much on Partygate, the Labour leader insisted his party could not just “pass over” the fact that Johnson had been issued with a fixed-penalty notice (FPN), along with Rishi Sunak and scores of officials.
“They have been found to have broken the law – the criminal law at that,” he said. “No other prime minister in the history of our country has ever been found to have broken the law in office before. And I don’t think we can just pass over it.”
Starmer said he would not pretend it did not matter, and that Johnson’s “authority to lead the country is shot through”. He added: “His own MPs now, as we saw on Thursday, don’t really want to defend him because they’re sick of defending the indefensible.”
Johnson’s leadership has come under intense pressure in recent days, with senior MPs including Mark Harper and Steve Baker calling for him to go.
The Conservative co-chair Oliver Dowden rejected the idea that Johnson should step down, saying there was a “very, very strong case for him remaining in office”.
He insisted: “I don’t think I’m defending the indefensible. I do think that what happened in Downing Street was wrong and I do feel that people feel a great deal of legitimate hurt and anger over what happened, and therefore I...
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