London, Jul 8 (PTI) The UK's Opposition leader, Sir Keir Starmer, and his deputy were on Friday cleared in a police investigation into alleged COVID lockdown rule breaches at a gathering in April last year.

Starmer and Angela Rayner had vowed to resign from their posts if found guilty of breaking the law in what became known as “beergate”, after the Opposition leader was pictured holding a bottle of beer with some colleagues following a campaign meeting.

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Durham Constabulary, which had opened an investigation into whether the gathering was held within the rules, concluded that no rules were broken as the event was within the lockdown exception in place for work meetings.

"Following the application of the evidential Full Code Test, it has been concluded that there is no case to answer for a contravention of the regulations, due to the application of an exception, namely reasonably necessary work,” Durham Police said in a statement.

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"Accordingly, Durham Constabulary will not be issuing any fixed penalty notices in respect of the gathering and no further action will be taken," the police force said.

The Opposition was quick to point out the stark contrast with the Metropolitan Police investigation into partygate allegations earlier this year, which resulted in 126 fixed-penalty notices or fines for rule breaches in Downing Street and Whitehall.

These fines also included one for Prime Minister Boris Johnson for a birthday party in the Cabinet Room in June 2020.

"I've always said no rules were broken when I was in Durham,” Starmer said on Twitter. "The police have completed their investigation and agreed: there is no case to answer.

"For me, this was always a matter of principle. Honesty and integrity matter. You will always get that from me," he said.

Rayner echoed the views in her Twitter post that they had always maintained that no rules were broken.

"The police have completed their investigation and agreed, saying that there is no case to answer. Integrity matters in politics. The contrast with the behaviour of this disgraced Prime Minister couldn't be clearer," she said.

The Labour Party consistently denied the gathering was against the rules, arguing that he and those present were working, paused to eat food during a break and then returned to their duties.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)