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Sir Keir Starmer has branded Boris Johnson “dishonest” and “a joke” as a senior Tory MP said the prime minister is no longer “worthy” to be in his role following his partygate fine.
As Mr Johnson addressed MPs in the Commons for the first time since being issued the fine by the Metropolitan Police for attending his own birthday party in the cabinet room in Downing Street in June 2020, the Labour leader said “the public does not believe a word the prime minister says”, and that partygate “is not a glitch in the system”.
It came as former Tory chief whip Mark Harper told the PM he is “no longer worthy of the great office that he holds” and confirmed he has submitted a letter of no confidence in Mr Johnson after he was fined for breaking coronavirus laws.
Sir Keir – who was reprimanded by Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle for calling Mr Johnson “dishonest” – accused Mr Johnson of dragging “everyone else down with him”.
He also branded the PM’s apology as “half-hearted”.
Reiterating his call for the prime minister to resign, the Labour leader urged Conservative MPs to speak out against the actions of their leader and “bring decency, honesty and integrity back into our politics and stop the denigration of everything that this country stands for”.
Addressing partygate for fewer than two minutes in his Commons statement, the PM offered a “wholehearted apology” and confirmed he had paid his fine.
“My job is to work every day to make the British people safer, more secure and more prosperous. That is what I will continue to do,” the PM added.
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