Boris Johnson has written to Angela Rayner to insist “misogynistic” claims reportedly made about her by an unidentified Tory MP were not in his name.
According to the Daily Telegraph, the prime minister sent the deputy Labour leader a letter on Sunday in response to a report in the Mail on Sunday which has been condemned by Tory and Labour MPs alike.
Mr Johnson reportedly moved to assure Ms Rayner in the private letter that the comments were “not in his name”, expressing his sympathy over the anonymous attack.
The article claimed that an unnamed Tory MP had told the newspaper Ms Rayner crossed and uncrossed her legs on the Labour front bench during Prime Minister’s Questions in an attempt to distract Mr Johnson.
The paper likened the claims to a scene from the 1992 erotic thriller Basic Instinct and said she was trying to put the PM “off his stride”.
On Sunday, Ms Rayner called the story “desperate” and “perverted” and quickly received solidarity from across the House of Commons for the “smear”.
The prime minister was among those to publicly condemn the claims on Twitter.
“As much as I disagree with (Ms) Rayner on almost every political issue I respect her as a parliamentarian and deplore the misogyny directed at her anonymously today,” he wrote.
Senior ministers followed suit in condemning the claims. While Treasury minister Simon Clarke retweeted Mr Johnson’s message, culture secretary Nadine Dorries posted the same tweet as the PM.
On Sunday evening, the Tory chairman of Parliament’s Women and Equalities Committee, Caroline Nokes, revealed she had written to Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Commons Speaker, to suggest the journalist who wrote the story be formally censured.
The Conservative MP for Romsey and Southampton North told LBC the Tory MP sources behind the article should be “hanging their heads in shame”.
Earlier in the day she wrote on Twitter that “too many female MPs (of all parties)” have been on the “receiving end of vile” claims like those aimed at Ms Rayner.
Ms Rayner often sits next to Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer and opposite the prime minister during the weekly Commons clashes.
She has also stood in for Sir Keir at PMQs when he has been forced to self-isolate due to Covid-19.
In a series of tweets, Ms Rayner lashed out at the “lies” being briefed about her.
The Ashton-under-Lyne MP said: “Boris Johnson’s cheerleaders have resorted to spreading desperate, perverted smears in their doomed attempts to save his skin.
“They know exactly what they are doing. The lies they are telling.”
She said Mr Johnson and his backers “clearly have a big problem with women in public life” and that they “should be ashamed of themselves”.
“I won’t be letting their vile lies deter me. Their attempts to harass and intimidate me will fail,” Ms Rayner added.
