Beergate doesn’t absolve Boris Johnson – but it has tarnished Keir Starmer nonetheless

Editorial: If Sir Keir receives a fixed penalty notice, it would put him, in the eyes of many, in the same compromised category as Mr Johnson

Even if Sir Keir is found ‘innocent’ of any breach, the stain will remain (Getty)

The latest “bombshell” in the slightly bizarre “Beergate” saga looks more like a dud than a career-ending mortar round. The fact that Sir Keir Starmer scheduled a meal with the local Labour MP during campaigning in Durham doesn’t of itself suggest very much of a pre-planned social event, without being rude to those involved.

It was, in all likelihood, very much about the campaigning they were both working on – a “working dinner” within the rules, or at least a generous interpretation of them. The Labour leader, who has a reputation for hard work and seriousness, probably did spend a good deal of his evening talking politics. It doesn’t feel much like a gratuitously social gathering.

Even so, and despite the questionable motives of those involved in making the most of Beergate, the fact that the Durham police are looking into it is an embarrassment to the leader of the opposition, and an impediment to him doing his job.

How can he stand at the dispatch box in the House of Commons and upbraid the prime minister over Partygate when he himself is being “investigated” for breaking lockdown rules? How can he attack the Queen’s speech for its lack of integrity when he has to spend time filling in a police questionnaire?

Apparently he has charged Lord Falconer with the task of framing his answers, which means that a former director of public prosecutions will be answering police inquiries with the assistance of a former lord chancellor, another political “first”. Sir Keir cannot complain about being legally disadvantaged in his struggles.

The Durham police, reportedly, may take weeks if not months to complete their inquiries, which is a problem for the proper workings of the political system, and the reputation of politics itself. The Labour Party and Sir Keir need to work out how the opposition can function during this hiatus. Perhaps Sir Keir could recuse himself from certain duties. Yet that would be a strange arrangement. Indeed, if Angela Rayner, the deputy leader, is also implicated, then the job of leader of the opposition might have to be passed around the front bench on a sort of rota. It would certainly make Mr Johnson happy.

The reality is that, like the case involving No 10, the inquiries need to be completed as quickly as possible. Unlike Partygate, which has resulted in 50 fixed penalty notices already, Beergate was about only one event, and the facts of the case are not much in doubt, right down to the cost of the curry. It should be possible to test the legal arguments – whether a law inevitably flawed and ambiguous was clearly and seriously broken in this instance – relatively quickly.

Whether the Durham judgement is inconsistent with that of the Metropolitan Police is a matter for colourful public debate (“cake vs curry”) but has no legal locus. Importantly, Sir Keir is not accused of lying to parliament – the cover-up that may yet finish off Mr Johnson.

The Durham police have not emerged from this with much credit, being bullied by the media and politicised in the process, arguably as the Metropolitan Police were before them. They do seem to have been inconsistent in their attitude towards Sir Keir, where they reopened an inquiry, and Dominic Cummings, who they previously said had been guilty of a “minor breach” and hasn’t been reinvestigated despite admitting later that he left out a “crucial part” of his explanation as to why he broke lockdown rules.

Embroiled in politics, despite trying hard not to be, the Durham police now cannot win. Had they made their announcement about Beergate before polling day, it would have looked like political interference in an election and caused uproar. But if Sir Keir is eventually hit with a fine, then the police will look as though they delayed their statement about investigating him until safely after the polls closed, thus denying the voting public vital information.

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The police are in a mess. A conclusion that, like Mr Cummings, Sir Keir committed a “minor breach” that didn’t warrant further action even on a second look would be the best resolution of the matter. The police would have looked at fresh information, but applied the same burden of proof. Aside from that, there is something to be said for parliament giving police forces some clear guidelines about what they can and cannot do during an election period.

Which leaves the pure party politics of Beergate. If the intention of smearing Sir Keir (if that is what it amounts to) is to make the public believe that all politicians are the same kind of lazy, hypocritical rule-breakers, then it is doing the trick. Even a reprimand for a “minor breach” would do that. Yet it doesn’t absolve Mr Johnson of responsibility, even if Sir Keir is judged a hypocrite; but it does blunt the opposition’s attacks and helps the prime minister survive.

Even if Sir Keir is found “innocent” of any breach, the stain will remain, which is wrong but a matter of fact, and damaging to him and Labour’s chances of forming the next government. Unlike the prime minister, where roguishness is “priced in”, the whole point of Sir Keir is his honesty and integrity – an upstanding former prosecutor of criminals, the “anti-Boris”. If Sir Keir were to receive a fixed penalty notice, it would put him, in the eyes of many, in the same compromised category as Mr Johnson.

So if the fixed penalty notice does ever arrive, Sir Keir will need to consider his position, depending on the circumstances, just as the prime minister has had to. In the end, it will be a matter for his colleagues and his party as much as himself – and, most of all, for public opinion.