5 November 2019updated 25 Jul 2021 6:55am

Keir Starmer looks stumped in this Tory video – but the original clip is very different

The party seems to have misleadingly edited an interview with the shadow Brexit secretary for an attack ad.

Video games? (Photo By Twitter/@Conservatives)

The BBC’s Daniel Sandford has noticed something odd about a Tory attack ad published on its Twitter account earlier today.

It was basically a replay of an interview with the shadow Brexit secretary Keir Starmer on Good Morning Britain this morning.

Here it is:

WATCH: Jeremy Corbyn’s Brexit Minister can’t or won’t answer a simple question about Labour’s position on Brexit. pic.twitter.com/wsxMlUuq9N

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— Conservatives (@Conservatives) November 5, 2019

A bit dull, but it makes the intended point – that Labour’s Brexit stance is confusing and nonsensical, so much so that even Starmer is struck dumb by it at the end of the interview.

But actually, as Sandford discovered when watching the original interview, Starmer wasn’t stumped by Piers Morgan’s question at the end of the Conservatives’ video at all.

In fact, he answered the question at length:

“Well, Piers, I have been talking to the EU, to political leaders across the EU27 countries for three years, and I know very well what the parameters are of any deal that they would do with a Labour government, we actually explored some of it in the cross-party talks that we were in with the government six months or so ago, so I know that a customs union and single market alignment and protection of workers’ rights and environmental rights and consumer rights is something that can be negotiated.”

It looks like the Tory video has used a clip of Starmer silently listening to one of the presenters’ questions to suggest he was stumped into silence by Morgan asking why the EU would give him a good deal.

Here’s the clip:

Morgan himself has weighed in, calling the edit “misleading” and “unfair”:

Correct, he did, albeit not very convincingly – but the way this has been edited is misleading & unfair to @Keir_Starmer. https://t.co/6bIUumx4GP

— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) November 5, 2019