A second helping of Sir Beer Korma?
As ally urges Starmer to run for leader again if he’s forced to quit over Beergate, are we in for...
SIR Keir Starmer could run as Labour leader again if he is forced to resign over Beergate, his former chief whip has suggested.
Veteran MP Nick Brown said he would be ‘urging’ Sir Keir to seek re-election if police in Durham fine him over his alleged lockdown breach.
The force announced earlier this month that it was launching an investigation into the Labour leader, who said he would quit if he receives a fixed penalty notice.
Both Sir Keir and his allies have been staunch in denying any wrongdoing over the beer and curry incident. Mr Brown, the MP for Newcastle upon Tyne East since 1983, who left Labour’s front bench last year, told the BBC’s Politics North: ‘I agree entirely with Keir – I think he’s done the right thing.
‘I know him pretty well – he’s a man of absolute principle and integrity. I don’t believe for one moment the police will find against him.
‘Just for the sake of the argument say they did – and I don’t know for any one moment why they should – 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 Labour leader’s political gamble came after months of pressure to reveal the details of the Beergate scandal. Both he and his deputy Angela Rayner – who was also forced to admit she was at the event in Durham in April last year – have said they would step down if fined by police. Sir Keir has said: ‘I am absolutely clear that no laws were broken. I simply had something to eat while working late in the evening, as any politician would do days before an election.
‘This matters. It matters because the British public deserve politicians who think the rules apply to them.’ Some of his own MPs have further undermined his position, with former frontbencher Diane Abbott suggesting Sir Keir must ‘consider his position’ if fined.
Durham police did not initially act when images emerged of the Labour leader drinking beer indoors with colleagues but the force announced earlier this month that they would launch a probe ‘following the receipt of significant new information over recent days’. It comes as it was revealed that detectives investigating Beergate have finally arranged to take statements from the students who filmed Sir Keir allegedly breaching lockdown rules last year.
An Ipsos poll earlier this month found 58 per cent of people think he should resign if issued with a fixed penalty notice, increasing to 64 per cent among Labour voters.