Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has hit back at Boris Johnson over his Jimmy Savile slur in Commons.

The Prime Minister’s suggestion that the Labour leader failed to prosecute Savile has been described as “not true” by a former chief prosecutor and is also contrary to the findings of an independent fact-checking organisation.

Mr Johnson made the comments in the House of Commons as he hit back at Labour criticism over the Sue Gray report.

The Prime Minister said: “The report does absolutely nothing to substantiate the tissue of nonsense that he has said. Absolute nonsense.

“Instead this leader of the opposition, a former director of public prosecution – who used his time prosecuting journalists and failing to prosecute Jimmy Savile, as far as I can see – he chose to use this moment to continually pre-judge a police inquiry.

“He has reached his conclusions about it. I am not going to reach any conclusions and he would be entirely wrong to do so.

“I have complete confidence in the police, I hope that they will be allowed simply to get on with their job and don’t propose to offer any more commentary about it and I don’t believe that he should either.”

Sir Keir Starmer hits back Boris Johnson’s Jimmy Savile Slur

Speaking on Sky News on Tuesday, the Labour leader branded the claim a “ridiculous slur peddled by right-wing trolls”.

Starmer went on to describe the “disgust” on the faces of Tory MPs when the Prime Minister mentioned Savile during the Commons debate on Monday.

He said: “They knew he was sinking so low with that slur. It’s obviously not true. But he does it because he doesn’t understand honesty and integrity.”

He concluded Mr Johnson was trying to drag everyone “into the gutter” with his behaviour.

Mr Raab, the Justice Secretary, said he was “certainly not repeating it” during a broadcast interview, without the protection of parliamentary privilege.

But Tory former Cabinet minister Julian Smith said the Prime Minister should withdraw the “false and baseless” smear.

Sir Keir was director of public prosecutions from 2008 to 2013, but is not thought to have been involved in decisions relating to sexual offence allegations against disgraced entertainer Savile.