WATCH: Labour MP ordered to leave Commons for saying Johnson “lied”

Dawn Butler was ordered to leave the House of Commons this afternoon after refusing to withdraw her comments in the chamber stating that Boris Johnson has “lied” repeatedly during the coronavirus crisis.

Referring to a number of false claims made by the Prime Minister, highlighted by the CWU’s Peter Stefanovic on social media, Butler said Johnson had “lied to the House and the country over and over again”.

“Poor people in our country have paid with their lives because the Prime Minister has spent the last 18 months misleading this House and the country,” the Labour MP for Brent Central said.

“Peter Stefanovic from the CWU has over 27 million views online and let me tell you some of them. He highlights the Prime Minister said the economy has grown by 73% – it’s just not true. Reinstated the nurses’ bursary – just not true. There wasn’t an app working anywhere in the world – just isn’t true.

“The Tories invested £34bn in the NHS – not true. The Prime Minister said we had severed the link between infection and serious disease and death – not only is this not true, but it is dangerous and it’s dangerous to lie in a pandemic.

“And I’m disappointed that the Prime Minister has not come to the House to correct the record and correct the fact that he has lied to this House and the country over and over again.”

Reprimanded and asked to “correct the record”, Butler said: “At the end of the day, the Prime Minister has lied to this House time and time again, and it’s funny that we get in trouble in this place for calling out the lie rather than the person lying.”

Pressed again to withdraw her remarks, she replied: “I have reflected on my words and somebody needs to tell the truth in this House that the Prime Minister has lied.”

Butler left the chamber shortly after Judith Cummins MP, acting as temporary Deputy Speaker, read out a statement in which she ordered Butler to “withdraw immediately from the House for the remainder of the day’s sitting”.