Starmer: PM ‘up to his neck in this’
BORIS Johnson is trying to undermine Westminster’s sleaze watchdogs because of his own run-ins with the standards system, Sir Keir Starmer has claimed.
The Labour leader said the Prime Minister was unable to clean up Westminster because he is “up to his neck in this”.
Cabinet minister George Eustice dismissed the situation which has developed since the Owen Paterson case as a “storm in a teacup”, but anger within the Tory ranks has led to pressure on the Prime Minister.
Sir Keir, who returned to the public eye after a period of self-isolation with coronavirus, said: “Instead of upholding standards, he ordered his MPs to protect his mate and rip up the whole system – that is corrupt, it is contemptible and it’s not a one-off.”
Asked about Mr Johnson’s future, Sir Keir said he is “angry” as the reputation of the country and democracy is being “trashed” by the Prime Minister.
He went on: “When there was sleaze in the mid-1990s John Major rolled up his sleeves and he put in place the Nolan Committee on Standards in Public Life – so he was the prime minister who said ‘I will clear this up.’
“Boris Johnson is the Prime Minister who is leading his troops through the sewer – he’s up to his neck in this.”
Labour is pushing for Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards Kathryn Stone to investigate the refurbishment of Mr Johnson’s Downing Street flat and his Marbella holiday in a villa owned by the family of environment minister Lord Goldsmith.
The Prime Minister has already been admonished by the commissioner on four occasions, most recently over a £15,000 holiday to the island of Mustique between December 26 2019 and January 5 2020, but this was later overturned by the Committee on Standards.
Sir Keir said: “There is a whiff that the
Prime Minister would quite like the scrutiny and the standards to be weakened because they are looking too closely at him.”
He claimed the Prime Minister had a sense there is “one rule for him and his mates and another rule for everybody else”.
Environment Secretary Mr Eustice said the issue of the luxury Downing Street flat renovations had already been examined by Lord Geidt, the independent adviser on ministers’ interests and “put to bed”, suggesting there was no need for Ms Stone to look at it.
“It’s not her role to implement the ministerial code, it’s very much around parliamentary standards and MPs,” he told the Andrew Marr Show.
Issues around standards have dominated debate in Westminster after the Government sought to prevent former Cabinet minister Mr Paterson facing an immediate suspension over an “egregious” breach of lobbying rules, instead backing the creation of a Tory-led committee to look again at the case and overhaul the standards system.
Ministers backed down following a backlash, prompting Mr Paterson to quit the Commons.