Top Boris Johnson aide quits after PM’s ‘scurrilous’ attack on Labour leader

An influential aide to Boris Johnson quits after the British prime minister made a widely debunked claim attacking the opposition Labour leader over a notorious pedophile.

The departure of Johnson’s long-term ally Munira Mirza as head of Downing Street’s policy unit deepens the prime minister’s woes, after police launched an investigation into a series of lockdown-breaching parties.

He has faced demands to resign over the “partygate” affair, and came under fresh attack after trying to link Labour leader Keir Starmer to veteran TV host Jimmy Savile, who died in 2011 aged 84.

In parliament on Monday, Johnson shocked many on his own side when he aired a conspiracy theory prevalent among far-right groups that Starmer had personally failed to prosecute Savile.

Mirza says in her resignation letter that “there was no fair or reasonable basis for that assertion,” according to The Spectator magazine.

Johnson’s remark in parliament “was an inappropriate and partisan reference to a horrendous case of child sex abuse,” she says. “You are a better man than many of your detractors will ever understand, which is why it is so desperately sad that you let yourself down by making a scurrilous accusation against the leader of the opposition.”