Kim Leadbeater 'incredibly angry' over mob targeting Keir Starmer as Boris Johnson resists apology calls

It comes as Boris Johnson resists fresh demands to apologise for the Jimmy Savile smear he levelled at Sir Keir Starmer after police had to rescue the Labour leader from a mob.

In a pointed message to the Prime Minister, the Batley and Spen MP said “words have consequences, leaders have a duty to behave responsibly”.

Labour MP Ms Leadbeater said on Twitter: “I’m incredibly angry & upset by the scenes we saw yesterday.

“I keep thinking about Keir & David’s families & friends. But these things don’t just happen.

“Words have consequences, leaders have a duty to behave responsibly & politics is not a game. Our country deserves far better.”

Sir Keir was bundled into a police car for protection near Parliament on Monday as he faced baseless allegations of “protecting paedophiles” from anti-vaccine protesters shouting about Savile.

At least six Conservatives, including former Cabinet minister Julian Smith, joined MPs from across the political spectrum in linking the harassment to the baseless claim which Mr Johnson made while under pressure over the Partygate scandal.

However, technology minister Chris Philp said this morning that Mr Johnson could not be held responsible for the “unacceptable” actions of the demonstrators.

He said that some of those taking part had been involved in similar incidents targeting Communities Secretary Michael Gove and the BBC journalist Nick Watt.

“They did mention Jimmy Savile. They also mentioned Julian Assange repeatedly, they mentioned Covid, they also mentioned the opposition more generally,” he told Sky News.

“I don’t think you can point to what the Prime Minister said as the cause of that. You certainly can’t blame him for the fact that that mob were clearly behaving in a totally unacceptable way.

“You certainly can’t say that what he said in any way prompted, provoked or justified the harassment and intimidation we saw last night.”

Brendan Cox, the widower of Jo Cox, said the mobbing of Sir Keir on Monday could have been an “unintended consequence” of the Prime Minister’s choice to “inject poison into politics” with his Jimmy Savile comment.

“If it was a one-off, I think we could be more sanguine about it,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

“But I think what we’ve seen over the last few years really has been an increase in that level of intimidation online, absolutely, but also face to face.

“I think that it’s very hard to draw a direct link and to say that in some ways, the Prime Minister is directly responsible for what happened.

“I think the people that are directly responsible for what happened yesterday were the people that did it.

“However, it’s also true that if you inject poison into politics, that has a whole set of unintended consequences that people will react to in different ways and at times that can lead over into intimidation, it can lead over to violence, it can lead over into extremism.”

He added the Prime Minister had shown a "lack of respect" for the victims of Savile.

“When you throw around accusations of people protecting paedophiles or or not moving against paedophiles, it creates a viscerality of debate and a violence of emotional reaction.

“You’ve seen that in the US, the QAnon conspiracy theory there, initially on the margins, was then put into the centre of politics by Republicans and it led to violence – it led to people turning up in pizza parlours with automatic rifles.

“Now, our country is a very long way from that and the parallels you can’t draw directly across, but absolutely, when you throw around accusations of that moral character, it will have implications that I don’t think for a second that the Prime Minister was planning on, on stoking up that level of fury and anger.

“But I think you have a responsibility, when you’re the person in the highest office of the land, to be very careful about the language that you use.

“And also for the families involved, for the people who will be listening to this whose loved ones were abused by Jimmy Savile, a lack of respect for those individuals and the willingness to use it as a political tool, I think is something that does need to be questioned and challenged.”

Mr Johnson said in Parliament last week that Sir Keir had "spent most of his time prosecuting journalists and failing to prosecute Jimmy Savile” while Director of Public Prosecutions.

Coming under renewed criticism, Mr Johnson tweeted on Monday evening that the “behaviour directed” at the Labour leader was “absolutely disgraceful” but did not address the nature of the abuse.

Officers stepped in to protect the opposition leader as the group, some protesting against Covid measures, followed him from outside Scotland Yard.

On at least two videos posted to social media, a man and a woman were heard shouting about Savile to the Labour leader, as he walked with shadow foreign secretary David Lammy.

Scotland Yard said two people were arrested on suspicion of assault after a traffic cone was thrown at a police officer during the unrest.

Mr Lammy said it was “no surprise the conspiracy theorist thugs who harassed” Sir Keir and himself had “repeated” Mr Johnson’s slurs.

Sir Keir apologised while director of public prosecutions in 2013 for the CPS having failed to bring Savile to justice four years earlier.

There is, however, no evidence that Sir Keir had any personal role in the failure to prosecute the man who was one of Britain’s most egregious sex offenders before his death in 2011.

Mr Johnson accepted on Thursday that Sir Keir "had nothing to do personally" with any decision not to prosecute Savile. But his failure to issue a clear apology led to the resignation of Munira Mirza, the director of the Number 10 Policy Unit.