Revealed: Starmer ‘broke rules’ on campaigners meeting during elections

SIR Keir Starmer was accused last night of flouting Covid guidance which banned political campaigners from meeting indoors during last year’s local elections.

The Labour leader was pictured drinking beer with Labour colleagues in a constituency office in Durham last April, just days before the vote.

The event – which Sir Keir said was for the purposes of ‘running an election campaign’ – took place even though ‘step two’ rules banned household mixing indoors.

Now it has emerged that the event may also have breached special guidelines published for the local election campaign.

This guidance said campaigners should not meet indoors and there should be no social use of committee rooms.

It also stated that work organising campaigns should be done virtually and should not take place in person.

Yesterday Sir Keir refused three times to apologise for his presence at the meeting, and denied he was a ‘hypocrite’ after a caller to a radio station said he had done ‘exactly the same thing’ as Boris Johnson.

As pressure on the Labour leader mounted, Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi demanded that he say sorry, just as the Prime Minister had done for his behaviour.

Tory MP David Morris said: ‘The guidance covering the 2021 local elections, which the Labour Party was consulted on, is clear as day: “You should not meet with other campaigners indoors”.

‘Sir Keir needs to explain why it was OK for him to ignore this and drink indoors with his comrades.’

A senior Conservative source added: ‘The stench of hypocrisy coming off Sir Beer is growing more pungent by the day.

‘He’s been very quick to criticise people who met outdoors during this time but thinks it was absolutely fine for him to sink some beer and have a bite to eat with his mates indoors.’ Labour said no rules had been broken.

A spokesman said: ‘Keir follows the rules at all times.’

The local elections guidance, published in March last year, stated: ‘You should not meet with other campaigners indoors.

‘It is safer to meet outdoors, where the risk of catching or spreading Covid-19 is much lower, but two-metre social distancing should still be maintained.’ It went on: ‘Meetings to organise and plan campaigns should be held online or over the phone. They should not take place in person.’

The guidance also cautioned against the use of committee rooms, saying: ‘Any such activity should be functional and not social... It is against the law to meet socially indoors with anyone not in your household or support bubble.’

Yesterday, Sir Keir appeared on Nick Ferrari’s show on LBC Radio, where he confirmed the event was for the purposes of campaigning.

A caller, identified as ‘Jonathan from Taunton’, confronted him, saying: ‘You have been very vociferous and vocal with your attacks on Boris Johnson and his behaviour regards the parties that he either has or hasn’t attended. And yet you have done exactly the same. And although you will couch it differently you have done exactly the same thing.

‘You were in an enclosed room with a load of people, not socially distanced. No face masks. Drinking beer. Late at night. It’s the same. And therefore you should also resign if you’re calling for Boris Johnson to, or make a full and fulsome apology to everybody and stop being a hypocrite.’

Sir Keir replied: ‘The picture of me was in a constituency office up in the North East. It was, I think, three or four days before the May elections so we were really busy. I was with my team going across the country from place to place. ‘We are in the office, working in the office and we stopped for a takeaway and then we carried on working. And that is the long and the short of it.

‘There was no breach of the rules. There was no party and there was absolutely no comparison with the Prime Minister.’

Sir Keir declined three times to apologise for the ‘look’ of the pictures. He said: ‘We didn’t break any rules. I understand what’s going on here... there comes a point at which the Tories try to take everyone into the gutter with them.’

Speaking earlier on LBC, Mr Zahawi said: ‘What I saw in that video is Keir Starmer swigging a bottle of beer, other people around him indoors – not even in an outdoor space. I don’t see how he can differentiate that it was a different type of event to what the Prime

‘Sir Beer’s stench of hypocrisy’

‘He’s been quick to criticise’

Minister went to in his garden to motivate his workforce.

‘As someone who’s lost a loved one, all I’d expect was an apology. There was no apology with this – he tried to just bulldoze his way through.

‘We expect our politicians to be held to high standards and when you’ve made a mistake – it looks from that video like Keir Starmer made a mistake – he should apologise for it.’

Consumer rights champion Martin Lewis told the BBC Politics Live show: ‘Keir Starmer will have to take a hard look at what he did and whether he should be saying he didn’t quite get it right.’

But he added: ‘The big difference is Keir Starmer isn’t making the rules: Boris Johnson is the one making the rules.’

HOW many drinkers does it take to make a party? We ask the question because the numbers said to have attended Sir Keir Starmer’s boozy gathering in Durham last year appear to be swelling.

The initial story was that it was just the Labour leader and a few colleagues enjoying a beer and a takeaway after a long day on the local election campaign trail.

Yesterday, however, Sir Keir admitted the ‘team’ around him comprised six people. Presumably also present were representatives of the constituency association, whose office it was.

How many in total, then. Ten? A dozen? More? Bear in mind that this was at a time when indoor socialising was banned AND, as the Daily Mail reveals today, there was specific official guidance for the May 6 elections that campaigners should NOT meet indoors.

So how does this get-together differ in principle from Boris Johnson having a drink with senior staff after work in the Downing Street garden during lockdown? Indeed the outdoor setting was surely safer.

Yet Sir Keir demands Mr Johnson’s resignation, while steadfastly refusing to apologise (three times yesterday alone) for his own obvious rule-breaking.

Yes, there were multiple gatherings at Downing Street, some in probable breach of Covid restrictions. But that doesn’t make Sir Keir’s soiree any more acceptable. Or him any less of a steaming hypocrite.

The truth is the public are becoming heartily sick of this unedifying bunfight.

Once mandarin Sue Gray has reported on the affair, Mr Johnson has prostrated himself in humble contrition (again), and those responsible for arranging the parties censured, Britain must move on.

If there’s been one good outcome of ‘Partygate’, it’s that the PM has been forced to rediscover his inner Tory.

His backbenchers were right behind him in rejecting tougher restrictions despite the arrant scaremongering over Omicron. They are now driving him towards a more ‘red-meat’ Conservative agenda.

Bringing in the Navy to tackle crossChannel migration. Freezing the television licence fee with a view to abolition. The Levelling Up Bill. Rewriting human rights laws to make deporting foreign criminals easier. These are all policies that will please party faithful and country. He must make sure words are followed by radical action.

Mr Johnson must also shelter families from the worst of the coming cost of living crisis. A thorough review of green taxes on energy bills and deferral of the impending rise in national insurance would be excellent starting points.

Everywhere is thrilling medical and economic news. Virus infection rates are plummeting and our GDP has returned to pre-Covid levels faster than almost any other Western country. We are ready to fly.

But first we must get past Partygate. This whole saga is giving us all a thumping hangover – without having had the fun of going to the parties. Enough is enough!