Keir Starmer and Boris Johnson in Commons ‘row’ over Covid vaccine comments
Sir Keir Starmer has apologised after reports from MPs that he confronted Boris Johnson during a heated row following prime minister’s questions.
Starmer is said to have taken exception when the prime minister highlighted a previous call by the Labour leader for Britain to remain a member of the European Medicines Agency (EMA). A Labour frontbencher denied having intervened to prevent a physical altercation.
In the Commons yesterday Johnson accused Starmer of having repeatedly called for the UK not to quit the EU body, and said that having remained part of the agency would have slowed the vaccination programme.
Several MPs have reported that Starmer challenged the prime minister at close quarters in the immediate aftermath of the session, which ended at around 12.45pm. Onlookers described him as maskless, “rattled” and “puce”, and said that he had accused Johnson of lying as they spoke at the entrance to the “Aye” lobby.
A spokesman for Starmer said later the Labour leader had “misheard” and thought the prime minister was accusing him of wanting to join the EU’s vaccine programme.
“Keir accepts that, on this occasion, the prime minister was referring to old comments about the European Medicines Agency, and Keir admits he was wrong and made a mistake in his response,” the spokesman said. “It’s not Labour policy to join the European Medicines Agency or the EU vaccine programme. We have never called for the UK to be in the EU vaccine programme.”
One MP present told The Sun: “Keir fronted up to the PM after PMQs in the entrance to the chamber — no mask, not socially distanced either, to say that the PM was wrong about the EMA.”
Christian Matheson, the MP for Chester and a shadow minister, is alleged by several of those present to have pulled the Labour leader away from Johnson.
Labour MPs who were present initially refused to be drawn on the incident but did not deny that there had been a spirited exchange of views. One told The Times: “What happens in the lobby stays in the lobby.”
Matheson himself described accounts of his role as peacemaker as nonsense. He said in a statement released via the Labour press office: “There was a brief chat and then Keir and I left together. Nothing more to it than that.”
Starmer, 58, had already made his displeasure with Johnson, 56, clear in the Commons chamber. Visibly nonplussed, he accused the prime minister of peddling untruths over his past support for EMA membership.
Johnson had told the leader of the opposition: “If we had listened to [Starmer], we would still be at the starting blocks because he wanted to stay in the European Medicines Agency and said so four times from that dispatch box.”
Starmer said: “Complete nonsense. Don’t let the truth get in the way of a pre-prepared gag. The prime minister knows I’ve never said that, from this dispatch box or anywhere else — the truth escapes him.”
Hansard, the official record of the Commons, shows that in January 2017, following the previous June’s referendum vote to leave the EU, Starmer questioned why Britain would want to withdraw from the EMA.
Mark Francois, the chairman of the European Research Group of Conservative MPs, quoted the comments in a point of order raised after the end of prime minister’s questions.
In 2018 Labour supported an amendment to the Trade Bill that called for the UK government to seek participation in the EMA.
The prime minister appears to have recovered quickly from the confrontation. In the immediate aftermath, he repaired to the Commons tearoom with the chief whip, Mark Spencer, and Trudy Harrison, his parliamentary private secretary.
Witnesses said that Matheson then gently chided Johnson for making a rare appearance in his backbenchers’ favoured place to eat. “There must be trouble at t’mill if you’re in the tearoom,” he is said to have quipped.
The prime minister’s spokesman said that he could neither confirm nor deny reports of the altercation.
A spokesman for Starmer professed to be unaware of any clash between the two but a Labour source later said: “They had a perfectly reasonable conversation as they often do after PMQs.”
Starmer’s predecessor as Labour leader once came close to fisticuffs in the division lobbies. In 1985 Jeremy Corbyn narrowly avoided a scuffle with an irate Robert Kilroy-Silk, the one-time Labour MP who later became a chatshow host and contender for the leadership of Ukip. Corbyn had gone on television to dismiss allegations that Kilroy-Silk was being targeted for deselection by the Militant tendency.
