Lammy refuses to say if leader should resign over ‘beergate’

A MEMBER of Sir Keir Starmer’s shadow cabinet has refused to say if the Labour leader should resign if he was found to have broken the law for drinking beer during lockdown.

David Lammy, the shadow foreign secretary, insisted that Sir Keir had not broken the law and that there is no police investigation. The party came under criticism for its response to partygate when a photograph emerged of the Labour leader drinking a beer last April in a Durham office.

“Well, he hasn’t broken the law… I don’t know if you’ve looked at the rules as they were at that time,” Mr Lammy told the BBC. “This was well within the rules and that is why there is no police investigation. Why are we even talking about this?”

At the time of the gathering at the constituency office of local MP Mary Foy, social distancing rules which included a ban on indoor mixing between households were still in place.

Durham Police have been asked by Richard Holden, the Tory MP for North West Durham, to reconsider its decision that no offence was committed during the meeting.

Mr Lammy yesterday dismissed the idea. “I think it’s rather depressing that as people head to the polls you are raising an issue where there is no police investigation, where there was no breach of the rules.”

The party previously denied that Angela Rayner was at the event, but Sir Keir insisted that was “a genuine mistake”. Asked if the deputy leader was at the event, Sir Keir told Sky News: “Yes. We were in the office, we were working, we paused for something to eat, there was no party, no rules were broken and that is the long and short of it.

“I know what is going on here, we have got an election on Thursday and there are just Tory MPS trying to throw mud around because they have got nothing to say on the central issue of the cost of living.

“We were asked twice and I didn’t even realise we had made a mistake until it came out this week.”

Mr Lammy added that the mistake came from the Labour leader’s office. “We apologise for that mistake,” he added.