The Commons Speaker has rebuked Boris Johnson for making a false insinuation that Keir Starmer refused to prosecute the serial sex offender Jimmy Savile, but stopped short of demanding an apology.
Lindsay Hoyle’s intervention came after the Tory former chief whip Julian Smith became the most senior Conservative to urge Johnson to withdraw the insinuation about Starmer.
After Starmer responded in the Commons to Sue Gray’s report on alleged Covid rule-breaking in Downing Street, Johnson called him “a former director of public prosecutions, who spent more time prosecuting journalists and failing to prosecute Jimmy Savile”.
Smith, the former Conservative Northern Ireland secretary and chief whip, said Johnson’s comments about the child sexual abuser were unacceptable. The claim has been promoted by far-right conspiracist Facebook groups.
“The smear made against Keir Starmer relating to Jimmy Savile yesterday is wrong and cannot be defended,” he tweeted. “It should be withdrawn. False and baseless personal slurs are dangerous, corrode trust and can’t just be accepted as part of the cut and thrust of parliamentary debate.”
After a point of order by the Labour MP Chris Matheson on Tuesday, Hoyle said he was disappointed about the state of the discourse. “I am far from satisfied that the comments in question were appropriate on this occasion,” he said. “I want to see more compassionate, reasonable politics in this house and these sort of comments can only inflame opinions.”
Despite the reaction from members of his own party, Johnson refused to backtrack on Tuesday night. Speaking to the Sun, the prime minister said: “As far I’m aware, it’s fairly accurate.”
Two cabinet ministers have defended Johnson’s decision to use the false claim in the Commons but one admitted they could not substantiate it.
The deputy prime minister, Dominic Raab, said it was part of the “cut and thrust of parliamentary debates and exchanges” but said he was not prepared to repeat the allegation.
“I don’t have the facts to verify this … I don’t have the facts to justify that. I can’t substantiate that claim,” Raab told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
The culture secretary, Nadine Dorries, told Channel 4 News: “I have no idea of the background of Keir Starmer … The prime minister tells the truth.”
Another Conservative MP, Bob Neil, tweeted that he agreed with Smith. “This suggestion is baseless and unworthy, even in the cut and thrust of political debate,” he said on Tuesday night. “There are plenty of reasons to attack [Keir Starmer] and Labour on their policies but not a false premise. Let’s at least fight out politics cleanly.”
Speaking on Sky News, the Labour leader said it was clear Tory MPs were uncomfortable with the false claim. “It’s a ridiculous slur peddled by rightwing trolls … I saw the faces of the Conservative MPs, the disgust on their faces that their prime minister was debasing himself by sinking so low in the chamber was clear,” he said.
“He’d been advised not to do it because it’s obviously not true, but he does it because he doesn’t understand what honesty and integrity means. Many of them expressed that to me, disgust at their prime minister for debasing himself in the House of Commons instead of acting with the contrition and the integrity that he should have shown yesterday.
“He does what he always does, which is to try to drag everybody into the gutter with him. One thing we know about this prime minister is everybody who has ever come into contact with him always gets damaged in the process.”
Nazir Afzal, a former chief crown prosecutor for the north-west of England, said Johnson’s reference to Savile was “a disgrace to parliament and office of prime minister”.
Johnson’s insinuation in parliament that Starmer personally failed to charge Savile echoes claims made by online conspiracy theorists.
The factchecking organisation Full Fact looked into the claim in June 2020. It found: “Mr Starmer was head of the [Crown Prosecution Service] when the decision was made not to prosecute Savile but he was not the reviewing lawyer for the case.”
The first popular Facebook post containing the claim was shared by a page called Recusant Nine. The post claims Starmer “decided there was ‘insufficient evidence’ to charge Savile”. It has been shared 2,400 times, and was copied and pasted by a network of pro-Brexit Facebook pages shortly after it was posted in April 2020.
Starmer commissioned an investigation into the CPS decision not to prosecute Savile, and later apologised for “errors of judgment” made by police officers and the CPS prosecutor on the case. The investigation did not suggest Starmer was personally involved in the decisions made.
In 2007 and 2008, the police investigated complaints about Savile engaging in sexual behaviour with young girls. He was interviewed under caution in October 2009 but not charged with any offence.
Since his death in 2011 it has emerged that he sexually abused hundreds of children and women at locations including hospitals, schools and the BBC.
