Johnson: “Absolutely disgraceful”
British opposition leader harassed by mob
02/07/2022, 10:15 p.m
They shout “traitors” and harass him on the street: several demonstrators attack British opposition leader Starmer in such a way that the police have to rescue him from the situation. A false claim by the Prime Minister plays a role in this.
Police have had to escort British opposition leader Keir Starmer to safety after being harassed by an angry mob. Videos circulating online show Starmer being attacked by protesters near Parliament in London. Calls such as “traitors” can be heard. Police officers finally steer the Labor politician into a patrol car, which drives away with the blue lights flashing. According to Scotland Yard, two people were arrested after throwing a warning cone at officers.
What is particularly piquant about the incident is that Starmer was also confronted by the demonstrators with accusations that he, as chief of the public prosecutor’s office, failed to prosecute the pedophile BBC presenter Jimmy Savile, who has since died. Prime Minister Boris Johnson raised the false claim in Parliament last week. He was also heavily criticized for this from within his own ranks. His chief strategist Munira Mirza even took this as an opportunity to resign.
Johnson called the incident “absolutely disgraceful”. “Any form of harassment of elected officials is completely unacceptable,” the prime minister wrote on Twitter. However, Labor politician David Lammy, who was present at the incident, held Johnson indirectly responsible. “No wonder the conspiracy theorists who harassed Keir Starmer and I repeated the slurs we heard from Boris Johnson at the lectern last week.”
Julian Smith of Johnson’s Conservative Party also linked the Prime Minister’s false claim to the evening’s incident. “It’s really important for our democracy and his [Starmers] Certainty that the false Savile slurs against him will be fully withdrawn,” Smith wrote on Twitter.
It is unclear whether the demonstrators were a homogeneous group. The videos featured an England flag, more commonly used by right-wing groups. However, Starmer has also been verbally attacked several times because of the imprisonment of Wikileaks boss Julian Assange. The British news agency PA reported that Pierce Corbyn could be seen on one of the videos. The brother of former Labor leader and old left Jeremy Corbyn is known as a radical opponent of vaccination.