Sir Keir Starmer and his Labour deputy Angela Rayner receive their questionnaires from police
Sir Keir Starmer and his Labour deputy Angela Rayner receive their questionnaires from police in Durham probing the ‘Beergate’ curry night
Durham police are probing potential lockdown breach by Sir Keir and Ms RaynerSir Keir was pictured through a window drinking a beer while in the city last yearAccording to Pippa Crerar, Daily Mirror’s Political Editor, Labour sources confirmed the two senior party figures have been handed the questionnairesBoth have denied wrongdoing, but have said they would resign if handed a Fixed Penalty Notice over an indoor beer and curry with aides during campaign visit
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Sir Keir Starmer and his Labour party deputy Angela Rayner have received their questionnaires from police in Durham who are probing the ‘Beergate’ curry night, party sources are reported to have said.
Durham Constabulary is probing a potential lockdown breach by Sir Keir and Ms Rayner last year, during which the Labour leader was pictured drinking a beer.
According to Pippa Crerar, the Daily Mirror’s Political Editor, Labour sources confirmed that the two senior party figures have been handed the questionnaires, that will be used to form part of the investigation.
‘Labour sources have confirmed that Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner have now received questionnaires from Durham Constabulary,’ Crerar wrote on Twitter tonight.
Both Sir Keir and Ms Rayner have denied wrongdoing but pledged to stand down if they are handed a Fixed Penalty Notice over an indoor beer and curry with aides during a campaign visit to the northeast city in April last year.
The row was fuelled because Labour initially denied that Ms Rayner was present, before admitting she had been.
The astonishing U-turn deepened the Beergate row and led to renewed questions about Labour’s account of the Friday night gathering, which it has always insisted was a ‘work event’.
Sir Keir repeatedly called for Prime Minister Boris Johnson to fall on his sword when he was being investigated for Partygate lockdown breaches, and after he was fined by police over a birthday gathering in the Cabinet Room in June 2020.
Sir Keir Starmer was filmed sipping beer at a boozy curry in Durham – an event that is now being investigated by police over alleged Covid rule-breaking
Both Sir Keir and Ms Rayner (pictured left and right in Parliament on May 25) have denied wrongdoing but pledged to stand down if they are handed a Fixed Penalty Notice over an indoor beer and curry with aides during a campaign visit to the northeast city in April last year
According to Pippa Crerar, the Daily Mirror’s Political Editor, Labour sources confirmed that the two senior party figures have been handed the questionnaires
Yesterday, an ally of Sir Keir suggested that the Labour party leader could fight for re-election if he is forced to quit over Beergate.
Veteran MP Nick Brown, who served as chief whip under Sir Keir, said he hoped his former boss will be in charge at the next general election even if he gets a fine.
Speaking on BBC Politics North over the weekend, Mr Brown suggested that if he is punished by police Sir Keir could honour his vow to resign on principle, and then simply ask the party to reinstall him in charge.
Mr Brown, who retired from the front bench in May last year, insisted he does not ‘believe for one moment’ that police will punish Sir Keir.
However, he floated the prospect that even that would not be the end of the story,
Mr Brown said: ‘I agree entirely with Keir. I think he’s done the right thing. I know him pretty well…
‘I don’t believe for one moment the police will find against him.
‘Just for the sake of the argument say they did… if they did Keir would do what he said he would do, would resign.
‘And I would be the first person urging him to seek re-election and to lead us into the next general election.’
The row was fuelled because Labour initially denied that deputy Angela Rayner (pictured last week) was present for the curry, before admitting she had been
Meanwhile, Mr Johnson is also facing mounting pressure from his own party over lockdown parties that were held in Number 10 Downing Street.
Mr Johnson believes he ‘did not breach’ the Ministerial Code after receiving a fixed penalty notice for breaching his own coronavirus rules, he said today in a letter.
The Prime Minister was fined over a birthday party thrown in his honour in the Cabinet Room in June 2020 at a time when indoor socialising was banned.
But in a letter to his independent adviser on the Ministerial Code, Lord Geidt, Mr Johnson wrote: ‘In relation to the fixed penalty notice for my attendance in the Cabinet Room on June 19 2020, I believe that, taking account of all the circumstances, I did not breach the code.’
The Prime Minister is facing the increasing possibility that he could face a vote of no confidence in the coming days.
Boris Johnson is also facing mounting pressure from his own party over lockdown parties that were held in Number 10 Downing Street
A dozen Conservative lawmakers have called for a vote on Johnson’s leadership since last week, when the Sue Gray report blamed ‘failures of leadership and judgment’ by the prime minister and senior officials for allowing boozy government parties that broke the U.K.’s COVID-19 lockdown rules.
Under Tory party rules, a no-confidence vote in the leader will be triggered if 15 percent of party lawmakers – currently 54 – write letters calling for one.
Johnson said last week that senior civil servant Sue Gray’s report should put an end to the ‘partygate’ scandal, which saw 83 people, including Johnson, fined by police over parties in government buildings in 2020 and 2021.
Johnson said he took ‘full responsibility’ and was sorry – but denied he knowingly broke any rules or lied when he told Parliament last year that there had been no parties. He said it was time to ‘move on’ and focus on grappling with issues like Britain’s cost-of-living crisis and the war in Ukraine.
But a growing number of Conservative lawmakers are calling for a no-confidence vote in Johnson, who won the party a big parliamentary majority in 2019 but has been dogged by questions about his ethics and judgment.
