MP calls for Labour leader to explain Sun article to Hillsborough families

A Labour MP has asked party leader Sir Keir Starmer to explain to the families of those who died at Hillsborough why he wrote a piece for The Sun newspaper.

An opinion column by Sir Keir ran on Sunday in the paper, which has been boycotted by people in Liverpool for decades over its reporting of the 1989 disaster.

Liverpool Riverside MP Kim Johnson said it had been perceived as a betrayal of Labour voters in the area.

Labour has been approached for comment.

Shortly after the disaster on 15 April 1989, in which 97 Liverpool fans died as the result of a crush, the paper published an article, which falsely claimed some fans pick-pocketed the dead and urinated on police.

In 2016, inquests found the victims had been unlawfully killed and exonerated fans of having any part in their deaths.

Shortly after, Labour-run councils in the area, including Liverpool, Sefton and St Helens, voted in support of motions to call on retailers not to sell The Sun.

During his campaign to become Labour leader in 2020, Sir Keir told party members at a hustings in Liverpool that he would not speak to the paper during his campaign.

"This city has been wounded by the media... and I certainly will not be giving an interview to The Sun during the course of this campaign," he said.

His opinion piece on Sunday was about food and petrol shortages.

Ms Johnson said Sir Keir "stood in this city during his election campaign and vowed that he would not give any interviews and would not be working with that newspaper, so it is very disappointing that he has rolled back on his pledge to do that".

She said she had written to Sir Keir and asked him to "to meet the family, friends and survivors of Hillsborough, just to get their view about why it is abhorrent to have anything to do with that newspaper".

Ian Byrne, the Labour MP for West Derby, was at Hillsborough and said in a statement that any party leader who "writes in the rag" was "not fit to be in position".

The chairman of supporters group Spirit of Shankly, Joe Blott, said it felt as though Sir Keir was "alienating the city and our fan base", while University of Liverpool politics lecturer Stuart Wilks-Heeg said the move may undermine any positive reaction Labour's leader had garnered on Merseyside following his recent party conference speech.

"We have seen recently with the local elections how hard it was for opposition parties to come in and challenge Labour in Liverpool," he said.

"But in Wirral and Sefton, where there is a strength of feeling and smaller majorities, some Labour MPs will be particularly uncomfortable."

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