Speaker censures Boris Johnson for claiming Labour ‘supports people traffickers’

Dame Rosie Winterton says prime minister must be more respectful

(PRU/AFP via Getty Images)

Boris Johnson has been censured by the chair during a House of Commons debate after bizarrely claiming that Labour was "on the side of people traffickers".

Deputy Speaker Rosie Winterton, who presided over Wednesday's session of prime minister's questions, said the prime minister should be "more respectful" and that he was not living up to parliamentary standards.

Mr Johnson made the claim because Labour has criticised his policy of deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda. Opposition leader Keir Starmer has opposed the move on the grounds of cost and practicality.

During an exchange with the Labour leader Mr Johnson responded to heckling by telling MPs, telling the Commons: "They're on the side of the people traffickers who would risk people's lives at sea and we are on the side of people who come here safely and legally."

Many refugees crossing the channel to apply for asylum in Britain pay for help from traffickers because the UK government does not provide them with safe routes to enter the country.

Anti-migration politicians often focus their rhetoric on "traffickers" as an easier target than the refugees themselves.

After the end of the PMQs session Labour MP Yasmin Qureshi made a point of order questioning the prime minister's comments to the deputy speaker and saying it should be removed from the record.

Ms Winterton said the "level of noise" during the session meant it was not possible "for the chair to hear everything".

"But I understand that the Prime Minister did say that the opposition was 'on the side of people traffickers'," she said.

"That seems to me, and I have to say to the Speaker, to fall well short of the good-temper, and moderation which should characterise our debates," she said.

"I say to the prime minister, and to all members here: we need to refer to each other in this place in more respectful terms, and I'm sure that that spirit will be adopted in the statement to come."