No 10 has no intention of apologising for the PM’s false claim that Sir Keir Starmer failed to prosecute Jimmy Savile after the Labour leader was targeted by protestors near Parliament.
Boris Johnson is facing fresh calls from Tory MPs to say sorry after protesters were heard shouting about the sex offender, as well as protesting about Covid measures.
But a senior source told the BBC: “He’s got other stuff to get on with today.”
Mr Johnson did condemn the harassment.
In a tweet, he said the behaviour directed at Sir Keir on Monday afternoon was “absolutely disgraceful” and “completely unacceptable”.
But a No 10 source said it was unreasonable to suggest that what happened on Monday “was Boris’s fault and not the mob’s fault”.
At least seven Tory MPs later linked the incident to the PM’s incorrect comment and demanded the prime minister said sorry.
However, Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis said the PM had made a “fair and reasonable point” about Sir Keir taking responsibility for the organisation he led, and nobody should use the remarks to “excuse behaviour from thugs”.
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Videos on social media showed Sir Keir being escorted into the police car on Victoria Embankment shortly after 17:00 GMT, close to Portcullis House – an office building used by MPs.
Protesters could be heard repeatedly shouting “traitor”, while criticising the Labour leader for supporting Covid vaccinations and not “opposing the government” or protecting the working man.
Some protesters were seen holding signs opposing mandatory vaccinations and restrictions to curb the spread of Covid.
But there were also shouts about attacks on journalists, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, and about protecting paedophiles, naming Savile.
Some MPs have linked these remarks to the false claim that Mr Johnson made in the Commons last week, when he said Sir Keir “spent most of his time prosecuting journalists and failing to prosecute Jimmy Savile”.
Scotland Yard later said a man and a woman were arrested after a traffic cone was thrown at officers.
‘Misconstrued’
Technology Minister Chris Philip told BBC Breakfast there was “no way you can reasonably make a link” between what the protesters said and the PM’s previous remarks.
He said Mr Johnson’s comments in the Commons were “capable of being misconstrued”, but that he had clarified in the following days that Sir Keir was not personally responsible for the case.
Criticism came from Tory MPs, including Commons defence committee chair Tobias Elwood who tweeted: “Let’s stop this drift towards a Trumpian style of politics from becoming the norm.”
And Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, whose now holds the seat of her sister Jo Cox, who was killed while serving as a politician, said: “These things don’t just happen. Words have consequences, leaders have a duty to behave responsibly and politics is not a game.”
Julian Smith, a former Northern Ireland secretary under Mr Johnson, said it was important for democracy, as well as Sir Keir’s security, that “the false Savile slurs made against him are withdrawn in full”.
Senior Tory MP Sir Roger Gale – who has already called for the PM to resign over the Downing Street party row – also said he feared the “grim scenes” outside Parliament were “the direct result of the deliberately careless use of language in the Chamber”.
Monday’s incident has reignited the anger inside the Conservative Party at the prime minister’s false claims in Parliament a week ago.
His refusal to apologise, and partial retraction, made some MPs queasy and was the trigger for at least one of them to add their private letter to those already submitted in an effort to oust him.
It’s impossible to say categorically that the protesters had been driven by the prime minister’s comments last week.
But the ugly event has stirred calls again among Tory MPs for the PM to take back his comments completely, and to acknowledge the danger of what he’d said.
There is no sign as I write that No 10 has any intention of doing so.
The prime minister made the remark in Parliament last Monday as he was grilled by MPs over an initial report on Downing Street parties held under Covid restrictions.
He sought to clarify his comments afterwards, insisting the Labour leader “had nothing to do personally” with the decision not to prosecute Savile when he was director of public prosecutions.
Instead, he said he was “making a point about [Sir Keir’s] responsibility for the organisation as a whole”.
But in the following days, one of his longest serving aides, Munira Mirza, resigned her Downing Street role over his refusal to apologise.
Sir Keir has previously described the claim as “a ridiculous slur, peddled by right-wing trolls”.
Rosena Allin-Khan, Labour’s shadow mental health minister, said “words have consequences” and called on the prime minister to say sorry.
She told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: “He could make this better and come to the House of Commons and make an unreserved apology for his awful smearing of last week.”
When asked earlier on Monday whether he would like to see an apology from the PM, Sir Keir said it was “up to the prime minister how he conducts himself”.
Shadow foreign secretary David Lammy, who was with Sir Keir at the time of the incident, tweeted: “Intimidation, harassment and lies have no place in our democracy.”
A statement from the Metropolitan Police said: “A man who had been surrounded by a group of protesters… was taken away from the scene by a police car.
“A man and a woman were arrested at the scene for assault of an emergency worker after a traffic cone was thrown at a police officer.”
Who were the protesters?
Analysis by Shayan Sardarizadeh, BBC Monitoring
The protest in Westminster was an attempt to replicate the “freedom convoy” in Canada’s capital in recent days.
But unlike the protest in Ottawa, the UK rally was small. Familiar faces from anti-vaccine rallies that have been held during the pandemic were in attendance.
The small gathering outside the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police had been relatively quiet up until Sir Keir was surrounded.
Amid shouts of “traitor” and references to Jimmy Savile and paedophiles, the Labour leader was accused by one protester of “ignoring our Magna Carta”.
This a familiar theme used by followers of the so-called “sovereign citizen” movement.
They believe they can opt out of laws – including Covid restrictions – by invoking a clause in Magna Carta – the royal charter of rights signed in 1215.
They have handed fake legal documents to health workers and teachers to try to stop Covid vaccinations and some have even tried to remove Covid patients from intensive care wards, citing non-existent “common law” empowering them to do so.
