Boris Johnson has bowed to pressure and rowed back on a controversial comment about Keir Starmer and Jimmy Savile, after three days of pressure from Tory MPs for him to withdraw the “smear”.
The prime minister said he wanted to “clarify” his comments and admitted “a lot of people have got very hot under the collar”, hours after Jacob Rees-Mogg said it was “perfectly fair and reasonable”.
The controversy began on Monday, when Johnson launched an attack on Starmer during a testy Commons exchange about a damning document on alleged Covid rule-busting parties in No 10 and across Whitehall.
In response to the Sue Gray inquriy, which identified serious failures of leadership at the top of government but was heavily pared back given an ongoing Scotland Yard investigation, Starmer called on Tory backbenchers to “end this farce” and oust Johnson.
The prime minister retorted by accusing Starmer of trying to “prejudge a police inquiry”, adding that as director of public prosecutions from 2008tp 2013, Starmer had “spent most of his time prosecuting journalists and failing to prosecute Jimmy Savile”.
Starmer later accused Johnson of “parroting the conspiracy theories of violent fascists” for political gain. A Tory MP and former chief whip, Julian Smith, also said the “smear” was “wrong and cannot be defended”.
On Thursday, during a visit to Blackpool, Johnson was challenged to withdraw the remark.
He said: “I want to be very clear about this because a lot of people have got very hot under the collar, and I understand why.
“Let’s be absolutely clear, I’m talking not about the leader of the opposition’s personal record when he was director of public prosecutions and I totally understand that he had nothing to do personally with those decisions.
“I was making a point about his responsibility for the organisation as a whole. I really do want to clarify that because it is important.”
Three cabinet ministers have defended Johnson’s decision to use the false claim in the Commons. One, the justice secretary, Dominic Raab, admitted he could not substantiate it.
The latest to defend the comment was Rees-Mogg, who said such remarks were “perfectly fair and reasonable points of political debate”.
During business questions in parliament on Thursday, he said Starmer’s apology, made on behalf of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in 2013, was “following the principle of taking responsibility for what went on in his organisation and then apologised for the fallings”.
Rees-Mogg said Johnson had “apologised similarly for mistakes that have been made in Downing Street” and added: “I think that what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, and the geese and the gander should not complain one for the other. They are perfectly fair and reasonable points of political debate.”
Pete Wishart, the SNP’s shadow Commons leader, challenged Rees-Mogg to allow an urgent debate about parliamentary discourse and “how we hold members accountable for the veracity and truthfulness of things that are said in this house” given the fury about Johnson’s comment about the Starmer.
Rees-Mogg said it was natural for MPs to dispute claims. He said: “That is why we have the forms of debate that we have. Because when people hold views strongly, and somebody else stands up and thinks the other thing, they say: ‘That’s not true’.
“But it’s not a matter of truth, it’s a matter of opinion, which is what we discuss in this house. It’s not a matter of fact-checking.”
While Starmer was head of the CPS, he commissioned a report in 2012 into why Savile had not been prosecuted when allegations of sexual assault were made to Surrey and Sussex police in 2007 and 2008.
The report, completed by Alison Levitt QC, suggested that if some of the victims had known there were others making similar complaints against Savile, they might have been more prepared to give evidence in court.
It also said there was no evidence found to suggest the decisions not to prosecute “were consciously influenced by any improper motive on the part of either police or prosecutors”.
After the report’s publication, Starmer said: “I would like to take the opportunity to apologise for the shortcomings in the part played by the CPS in these cases. If this report and my apology are to serve their full purpose, then this must be seen as a watershed moment.”
