Beergate
Beergate was a British political controversy concerning allegations that an event in Durham on 30 April 2021, attended by Labour Party leader Keir Starmer and Deputy Leader Angela Rayner, could have been in breach of COVID-19 lockdown restrictions. Labour and Starmer said, at the time and since, that the event complied with the rules for work gatherings, with a pause for food. The police, after investigating, cleared the Labour attendees, including Starmer and Rayner.
At the Durham event, shortly before the Hartlepool by-election and local elections, a Labour Party campaign team of seventeen people, including Starmer and deputy leader Angela Rayner, used the office of MP Mary Foy. Around 10pm, a student Ivo Delingpole, took a short video through the office window of the event. Next day, The Sun published a brief story including Labour's statement that this was a permissible work event, and pictures from the video showing Starmer with a beer while others ate a takeaway. The story then got little attention.
While responding to Partygate allegations in December 2021, Prime Minister Boris Johnson referred to the Durham event. In January 2022, he apologised for attending a "socially distanced drinks" gathering, saying he had believed it was a work event. Starmer said Johnson had breached the Ministerial Code by misleading Parliament, and asked him to resign. Conservatives featured in The Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail called Starmer a hypocrite, alleging that he had similarly breached lockdown rules. On 7 February 2022, Durham Constabulary cleared Starmer over the allegation. They had reviewed the video and did not believe an offence had been established, so would take no further action.
On 12 April 2022, after Johnson was given a fixed penalty notice for breaching COVID-19 regulations, Starmer again said Johnson should resign. Press and Conservatives made allegations about the Durham event and demanded a detailed investigation, on 6 May Durham Constabulary said they had begun investigating as new evidence had emerged. On 9 May, Starmer and Rayner said they were confident they had not broken any rules, but would resign if issued with FPNs, to demonstrate what they said were different principles to Johnson who remained in office. On 8 July 2022, Durham Constabulary announced that all attendees, including Rayner and Starmer, had been cleared of any wrongdoing. By then, the government was in crisis, and on 7 July Johnson had announced his resignation.
Durham event
On 30 April 2021, six days before the 6 May 2021 Hartlepool by-election and local elections, Keir Starmer joined campaigning in Hull, then travelled to Durham, where he was to arrive at his hotel at 6:30pm. He walked from there to join a Labour Party campaign team in local MP Mary Foy's office premises which form part of the Durham Miners' Hall. His deputy Angela Rayner, who had been campaigning in Hartlepool, arrived shortly before 7pm, and with their aides they took part in an online event for members, gave approval to press releases, and filmed campaign videos. Foy joined them, with about four members of her team. In total there were 17 participants at the gathering.A Labour memo or operational note said takeaway food was to be ordered from a nearby curry house for a meal break, scheduled to be between 8:40pm and 10pm, and after this noted that Starmer would walk to his hotel, "End of visit". Starmer said takeaways were "brought in and at various points people went through to the kitchen, got a plate and had something to eat", then "got on with their work".
Starmer said he continued work after the meal, and Labour showed The Guardian documentation to support this. A time-stamped video showed Starmer being filmed to 9:07pm, then WhatsApp group exchanges discussed editing the video as a International Workers' Day message. An aide who had been with Starmer sent the final edit at 1:56am, possibly after returning to their hotel. A source said Starmer was given overnight briefing papers to prepare himself for a visit the next day to Liberty Steel in Hartlepool. During the evening, edits were made between 10:41 and 11:19pm to a Google document script for filming there.
By that date, UK COVID-19 pandemic levels had fallen, and the lockdown regulations, first introduced in March 2020, had been eased to "step two" rules. Indoor socialising was still banned, with exceptions for events "reasonably necessary" for work purposes, and where "the gathering is reasonably necessary for the purposes of campaigning in an election". The government had also issued guidance, which for election campaigning said "You should not meet with other campaigners indoors." Restaurants were only permitted to serve food outdoors for groups of up to six people or up to two households, and indoor service was not allowed. Starmer said this was part of the reason for getting a takeaway delivered.
Video footage
A 34-second video filmed through the office window shortly after 10pm on 30 April 2021 showed Starmer and some of the group, drinking beer and eating. The footage was taken by Ivo Delingpole, a student at Durham University, and the son of the Breitbart writer James Delingpole, and who a year later said he had seen "something that I thought was an injustice and decided to film it because it made me angry".The student's video was initially forwarded to friends, and then to anti-lockdown activists including Reclaim Party leader Laurence Fox who uploaded it to his Twitter account at 8:42a.m. next morning, Saturday 1 May 2021.
The Sun used a picture from the video, showing Starmer with a beer, in a brief story it put online later that day. This included a Conservative statement that people would be "asking questions" about Starmer's involvement, and Labour's insistence that they had followed the rules; "Keir was in the workplace, meeting a local MP in her constituency office and participating in an online Labour Party event. They paused for dinner as the meeting was during the evening."
On 2 May 2021, the Sun on Sunday published the story on page 2 of its print edition, a placement usually used for political stories that are not expected to be widely read, and it was ignored by media until the Partygate scandal, concerning breaches of COVID-19 rules by the Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson and 10 Downing Street staff, developed. Throughout, Labour has consistently said that the lockdown rules at that time allowed indoor gatherings for "work purposes" and such eating and drinking was allowed if "reasonably necessary for work".
Response to Partygate
The Durham event was ignored until December 2021 when Partygate media investigations led to allegations that multiple staff gatherings in 2020 and early 2021 at Downing Street as well as other government offices had breached COVID-19 lockdown restrictions. Starmer strongly criticised Johnson for not acknowledging this rule breaking. Political correspondent Andrew Sparrow at The Guardian said it suited Conservatives defending Johnson to suggest that the single Durham event showed that "all politicians broke the rules", and they made the story a minor line of attack.On 8 December 2021, at PMQs, after a video clip from a year earlier showed Downing Street Press Secretary Allegra Stratton laughing about lockdown parties, Starmer accused Johnson of "taking the public for fools" and doubted his "moral authority to lead". At the next PMQs, Johnson said Starmer "might explain why there are pictures of him quaffing beer—we have not heard him do so." ITV News journalist Paul Brand related this to The Suns story about the Durham event, which had shown the photograph of Starmer with a beer in an election "booze row".
Johnson came under increasing pressure, including from Conservatives, after allegations that his Secretary Martin Reynolds had invited over a hundred staff to "socially distanced drinks". Johnson apologised at PMQs on 12 January 2022 for briefly attending the drinks party, but said he "believed implicitly that this was a work event" which "could be said technically to fall within the guidance." In reply, Starmer accused Johnson of "months of deceit" breaching the Ministerial Code which says "ministers who knowingly mislead Parliament will be expected to offer their resignation", and asked if Johnson did "not see why the British public think he is lying through his teeth?" Starmer also tweeted: "The party is over Boris Johnson. Resign".
The Daily Telegraph said on 13 January that Labour faced a "booze row": a "senior Tory" had responded to Starmer's statements by citing the Durham image showing Starmer drinking with party staff, "standing close to two other people while another pair congregated in the background." The senior Tory alleged that Starmer had "spent the past two months criticising people for doing the exact same thing he's been doing himself", and called him "an absolute hypocrite." For its 15 January 2022 front page, the Daily Mail headlined the picture from the video with "Starmer the Covid party hypocrite". Conservative MPs Andrew Bridgen and Iain Duncan Smith both accused Labour of hypocrisy, Bridgen said Starmer should refer himself and others in the photograph for investigation, Duncan Smith said Starmer should apologise. A tweet that day used the term "beergate".
Initial police review
On 7 February 2022, Durham Constabulary cleared Starmer over allegedly breaking lockdown rules. They said that, after reviewing the Durham video, "We do not believe an offence has been established in relation to the legislation and guidance in place at that time and will therefore take no further action in relation to this matter."Starmer contrasted the Durham statement with the Metropolitan Police announcement on 25 January that it was investigating alleged Partygate events only where there was evidence of a "serious and flagrant breach" of regulations, and "little ambiguity around the absence of any reasonable defence". Sue Gray's interim report released on 31 January had shown that by then the Met was investigating twelve Partygate events, including six which Johnson might have attended. Starmer said they were cases the police had found "serious enough and flagrant enough to put aside their usual rule that they won't investigate 12 months after the event."