Political violence is growing – and our prime minister is inflaming it

Our words have consequences and we should always be mindful of that fact.”

Twice in one week, the speaker of the House of Commons, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, has seen fit to reprimand the prime minister for his unfounded Jimmy Savile smear against Sir Keir Starmer. The rebuke is all the more telling for the restraint shown by Sir Lindsay, and the dignity with which he delivered it. If Boris Johnson’s comments about Savile were intended as a distraction from the disgrace of Partygate, then his plan has rather backfired. Remarkably, it has actually damaged Mr Johnson’s own already diminished standing.

This notorious smear, then, and its inflammatory consequences, has merely added to the large pile of evidence to suggest that the prime minister is unfit for office. Mr Johnson brings dishonour on his position and indeed on parliament. It has thus made it more, not less, likely that he will be removed from the party leadership, and from No 10, before long.

The damage to political life has been done, though. Now the conspiracy theorists are claiming on social media that the whole incident was staged as a “false flag” operation by Labour, or even by Momentum. This will not end well.

In an era in which political violence is growing – only months after the assassination of Sir David Amess, and near to where PC Keith Palmer lost his life – a mob, seemingly further inflamed by Mr Johnson’s slur on Sir Keir, accosted the Labour leader and his colleagues outside parliament. Had things been slightly different – a bigger crowd of angry protesters, a few less police – then the situation might well have turned more violent, and we would today be contemplating something more grievous.

Some say that Sir Keir, David Lammy and Lady (Angela) Smith would have been abused and attacked whatever the prime minister had said. There is some truth to that. The mob, as far as can be discerned, mainly comprised anti-vaxxers making a puny gesture of solidarity with the truckers’ protest in Ottawa.

From the videos, the motives of the crowd that gathered around the politicians appeared to be mixed. “Traitor”, “Julian Assange”, “Working man”, “Magna Carta”: the usual cocktail. But “Jimmy Savile” was there, too, and there are few more emotive topics than paedophilia. Without Mr Johnson’s weaponisation of the Savile scandal, these words would probably not have been used. It was not a coincidence. Usually, the word “paedo” has been hurled at politicians in the context of child vaccination. Not this time. The scale and ferocity of the incident, as the phrase goes, is “on him”.

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It is fair to conclude, then, that the prime minister’s deliberate jibe did “inflame opinions”, just as the speaker says. The conspiracy theories and the violent mood will not subside just because Mr Johnson issues a generalised condemnation of the incident; nothing less than a withdrawal will be sufficient.

Many of Mr Johnson’s side have acknowledged as much, and his principal policy adviser, Munira Mirza, has resigned because what he said was scurrilous – that is, untruthful – and unnecessary. But Mr Johnson has let it be known that he has better things to do than apologise to Sir Keir. The best we may hope for is a further “clarification”.

The exact allegation originally made by Boris Johnson under cover of parliamentary privilege is worth recalling. According to Hansard, it reads: “This leader of the opposition, a former director of public prosecutions – although he spent most of his time prosecuting journalists and failing to prosecute Jimmy Savile, as far as I can make out – chose to use this moment continually to prejudge a police inquiry.”

Contrary to subsequent spin and “clarification”, Mr Johnson did not make some abstract observation about taking responsibility as head of a large organisation, be it No 10 or the Crown Prosecution Service. It was a personalised, weaponised piece of fake news – and, according to new reports, it was premeditated, rather than being made in the “cut and thrust” of political debate. It was Trumpian, it was wrong, it was hurtful to Savile’s victims, it was damaging to democracy; and now it will help to destroy the prime minister’s reputation, and very possibly his career.