The leaked memo of Sir Keir Starmer’s “Beergate” event shows that the rules were followed, Lisa Nandy has said, as she refused seven times to say whether the Labour leader should resign if he is fined.

       The shadow levelling up secretary said that the operations note “demonstrates exactly what went on” and backed up Sir Keir’s version of events.

       The internal Labour memo, published on Saturday, detailed that Mr Starmer and his team were due to have a curry delivered to the Miners Hall in Durham in April last year.

       Labour have previously insisted that the event, which according to the itinerary was due to finish at 10pm, involved having a take-away because nowhere else in the city was open, and that staff returned to working after eating.

       The memo shows that the meal was in fact pre-arranged, casting further doubt over whether the event broke Covid rules.

       'Absurd' to compare to Boris Johnson and 'partygate'

       “He went on a work visit, he stopped to eat at various times during the day as was factored into the work visit and then he finished the work visit and he went back to his hotel,” said Ms Nandy.

       She told Sky News that it was “absurd” to claim that any breaches of Covid regulations by Sir Keir “in any way” equate to those of Boris Johnson.

       When pressed on whether he should resign if he is found by Durham Constabulary to have broken the rules, the Labour frontbencher today refused seven times to answer the question.

       “He is Mr Rules. He does not break the rules,” Ms Nandy said.

       “He was the director of public prosecutions, not somebody who goes around tearing up rules when it suits him.”

       “I’m not going to say he’s got to resign and entertain ridiculous hypotheticals,” she added, when pushed to give an answer by the BBC’s Sophie Raworth.

       Despite refusing to say whether he should resign, Ms Nandy, who ran against Sir Keir for leadership of the party in 2020, did not rule herself out for standing for leader if he were forced to resign.

       “We need a Labour government led by Keir Starmer that is going to be able to get money back into people’s pockets, deal with the immediate crisis and start to rebuild this country from the ground,” she told Sky.

       “There is absolutely no question in my mind that we can’t muck around with internal debates within the Labour Party.”

       Durham Constabulary announced on Friday that it would open an investigation into the “Beergate” event in 2021 “following the receipt of significant new information.”

       However, Peter Kyle, another Labour frontbencher today said that the timing of the announcement on the day of the results of the local elections was “politicised”.

       “This was announced on the day of an election. So this is being politicised in that manner,” the shadow Northern Ireland secretary told Times Radio.

       “There are people who are trying to interpret things in different ways. But here is the bottom line. Food is not illegal.”