Starmer 'fat shames' Boris by comparing him to Jabba the Hutt at PMQs

‘He thinks he’s Obi-Wan Kenobi, the truth is he’s Jabba the Hutt’: ‘Boring’ Keir Starmer is accused of ‘fat shaming’ Boris Johnson by comparing him to Star Wars slug at PMQs

• ‘Boring’ Keir Starmer has been accused of ‘fat shaming’ during PMQs
• Labour leader compared Boris Johnson to Star Wars villain Jabba the Hutt
• Sir Keir was most commonly described as ‘boring’ in a recent public poll

Twitter users today accused ‘boring’ Keir Starmer of ‘fat shaming’ Boris Johnson  after he compared the Prime Minister to Star Wars villain Jabba the Hutt at a cringeworthy PMQs.

The Labour leader mixed his metaphors as he delivered a series of ‘lame’ gags in the Commons this afternoon.

Sir Keir, who has been forced to beg his own frontbenchers to stop briefing the media that he is boring, played up for the cameras as he attempted to land a series of crushing blows on Mr Johnson.

In reference to Star Wars, he then jeered that the PM ‘thinks he’s Obi-Wan Kenobi, the truth is he’s Jabba the Hutt’ – a fat, evil slug-like gangster who features prominently in the film Return Of The Jedi.

But the under-fire Labour leader now has another set of problems on his hand, as he is accused of ‘fat shaming’ and ‘insulting’ Mr Johnson and ‘lowering the tone’ in parliament on social media.

One Twitter user railed: ‘Jabba the Hutt jokes just sound like ragging Johnson on his weight. And that just plays up the awful, braying nonsense I want less of in parliament.’

Another tweeted: ‘Does @Keir_Starmer seriously think that calling the elected PM of this country Jabba the Hut is appropriate? It set the whole tone for PMQs, Starmer desperately grappling for something to throw at Boris and thinking he’s being funny when actually he’s just being insulting.’

Boris Johnson speaking during PMQs in the Commons, June 15, 2022

Jabba the Hutt, the Star Wars villain at the butt of Keir Starmer’s PMQs joke

Twitter users blasted Keir Starmer’s Jabba the Hutt comparison at PMQs today

Jabba the Hutt: The fat, evil slug-like gangster from Star Wars at the butt of Keir Starmer’s PMQs joke 

Jabba the Hutt is a fictional Star Wars villain who appears prominently in the film Return of the Jedi.

A fat, evil slug-like gangster who lives in his place on Tatooine surrounded by slave alien girls, Jabba places a bounty on Han Solo’s head.

After bounty hunter Boba Fett captures Solo and delivers his frozen body to Jabba, the gangster puts him on display in his palace.

He is eventually choked to death by Princess Leia as she and Luke Skywalker rescue Solo. 

A third posted: ‘Starmer just compared QuasiBoJo to Jabba the Hutt from the dispatch box. What has happened to the tone of political debate in this country?’.

And in an attempt to crack his own Star Wars-themed pun, one person wrote: ‘If Boris Johnson is Jabba the Hutt then Keir Starmer is a cross between a Wookie and R2D2.’ Others suggested that the PM missed an opportunity to call Sir Keir ‘Darth Labour’.

At PMQs, Sir Keir said of Mr Johnson: ‘He’s in Government, he could do something to stop the strikes. But he hasn’t lifted a finger. I don’t want the strikes to go ahead, but he does. He wants the country to grind to a halt so he can feed off the division.

‘And as for his boasting about the economy, he thinks he can perform Jedi mind tricks on the country. ‘These aren’t the droids you’re looking for, no rules were broken, the economy is booming’. The problem is the force just isn’t with him any more.

‘He thinks he’s Obi-Wan Kenobi, the truth is he’s Jabba the Hutt. Last week he stood there and boasted that we would continue to grow the economy, this week it turns out the economy shrank for the second month in a row. How does it help Britain to have an ostrich Britain with his head in the sand?’

The Prime Minister said: ‘There he goes again, running this country down… we’ve got the highest employment… we’ve got lower unemployment than France, Germany, Italy, Canada. We’ve got the highest number of people in payroll jobs.’

He added: ‘Just in the first five months of this year this country has attracted I think £16billion of investment in its tech sector… three times as much as Germany, twice as much as France, he should be talking this country up, not running it down.’

It follows a poll which found that ‘boring’ was the most common word volunteered by the public to describe the Labour leader. 

It comes as Sir Keir is facing calls for an investigation into why he failed to declare which ‘mystery’ donors paid him more than £25,000 for legal work before he became Labour leader.

A Tory MP has written to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards to urge her to investigate further ‘potential breaches’ of the code.

Labour leader Keir Starmer speaking during Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons, London on Wednesday June 15, 2022

Prime Minister Boris Johnson waving as he leaves from 10 Downing Street in central London on June 15, 2022 to attend PMQS at the House of Commons

Alexander Stafford asked why Sir Keir registered the receipt of £17,598.60 for ‘legal advice given before 2020’– without saying who paid for it. 

It followed two previous declarations of £2,399.58 and £5,936 in December 2020. Mr Stafford, MP for Rother Valley, said the payments declared in the register of members’ financial interests failed to ‘disclose the source of this money, or indeed the ultimate client’. He claimed this was a breach of the rules. 

Kathryn Stone, the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner, announced she is investigating Sir Keir over multiple failures to register gifts from football teams and book royalties on time.

The Labour leader is also awaiting a verdict from Durham Police on whether he broke lockdown rules last year in the so-called ‘Beergate’ scandal – which saw him dubbed him ‘Sir Beer Korma’. It makes him the first Leader of the Opposition to face simultaneous investigations by the police and the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards.

Sir Keir has earned thousands for legal advice since he became an MP, but stopped doing so when he became Labour leader in April 2020.

The Tories have accused him of not being open about all the funding he has received, making a mockery of the system which is meant to allow the public to know whether any payments are above board. 

Mr Stafford’s letter said: ‘Clearly Mr Starmer’s entry in the register is incomplete as it is impossible to determine what influence the payment he has received might have on his actions and words as a Member of Parliament.’

Sir Keir’s office said last year the donors were not named due to ‘client confidentiality’ and said the arrangement had been agreed with the registrar of members’ interests.

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