Labour has responded furiously after Boris Johnson accused Keir Starmer of complicity in tolerance for the IRA, pointing to the prime minister’s acceptance of the former Brexit party MEP Claire Fox as a peer despite her prior support for the IRA’s Warrington bomb. The row erupted after a notably bad-tempered prime minister’s questions where Johnson criticised the Labour leader for his tenure as shadow Brexit secretary under Jeremy Corbyn, but was himself reprimanded by the Speaker for repeatedly dodging questions. Johnson said: “This is a leader of the opposition who supported an IRA-condoning politician who wanted to get out of Nato, and now says absolutely nothing about it.” A clearly angry Starmer pointed to his work combating Northern Ireland terrorism as the director of public prosecutions and demanded Johnson “do the decent thing” and withdraw the comment, which the prime minister refused to do. After PMQs, Starmer’s spokesman said Johnson should refrain from making such remarks and instead block the peerage of Fox, who defended the 1993 Warrington bombing when she was a member of the Revolutionary Communist party (RCP). “One thing we would remind the prime minister is that he has the power to block Claire Fox being nominated as a member of the House of Lords. So if he wants to take any action on this issue we suggest he does that,” he said. Colin Parry, the peace campaigner whose 12-year-old son, Tim, was one of two children killed in the blast, has condemned the decision to make Fox a non-aligned peer in nominations announced at the end of July. Fox has said she does not condone violence, but has not disowned her comment, made in an RCP newsletter after the attack, defending “the right of the Irish people to take whatever measures necessary in their struggle for freedom”. In the Commons, Starmer angrily rejected Johnson’s comments about his work under Corbyn and the IRA: “I want him to take it back. I worked for five years with the Police Service of Northern Ireland, as director of public prosecutions, prosecuting serious terrorism, working with the intelligence and security services, and the police. Can the prime minister have the decency to withdraw that comment?”
Johnson at first ignored the question. Then, when prompted by the Commons Speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, instead repeated the assertion. Starmer replied: “When the prime minister has worked with the security and intelligence forces, prosecuting criminals and terrorists, he can lecture me. I asked him to do the decent thing, but doing the decent thing and this prime minister don’t go together.” Johnson had by then already been reprimanded by Hoyle after he ignored Starmer’s questions on when he had first known about issues with the algorithm for giving A-level students results in the absence of exams.
Twice Johnson failed to respond to Starmer’s request for “a straight answer to a straight question”, instead asking the Labour leader to congratulate pupils on their hard work, and then condemning Starmer for “going around undermining confidence, spreading doubts”. When Johnson ignored a further question, about Tory MPs’ criticisms of the government’s problems over the summer, and made his comments about the IRA, Hoyle made an intervention – rare during PMQs – to tell him to be less evasive. “I think there are questions being asked,” the Speaker told him. “We do need to answer the question being put to the prime minister. It would be helpful to those watching to know the answers.” Johnson resumed: “Mr Speaker, I think it would be helpful for those watching to know …” Hoyle cut him off abruptly, saying: “Prime minister, I think I’ll make the decisions today.” Asked about Labour’s comments on Fox, a Downing Street source repeated a statement made when she was announced as a peer: “Claire Fox has addressed her historic comments about the Troubles, and acknowledged the pain that the families of the victims of terrorism have faced. “She is not a Conservative peer, and her political views will differ from those of the Conservative government.”