Keir Starmer has mocked “snowflake” Conservative MPs for pushing to get Gary Lineker taken off air for criticising the government.
Speaking during PMQs on Wednesday, the Labour leader made fun of Tory backbenchers for “howling with rage over a tweet”.
Lineker was suspended from his job presenting Match Of The Day after tweeting that the language used by ministers around Rishi Sunak’s new asylum plan was similar to Germany in the 1930s.
The decision led to several pundits and commentators walking out in support of the former England striker, throwing the BBC’s weekend sports coverage into chaos.
The former England star was reinstated on Monday and the BBC director-general Tim Davie apologised.
But some Tory MPs are still upset at Lineker for attacking the government, accusing him of breaking the BBC’s impartiality rules.
Starmer asked Rishi Sunak: “Last summer the prime minister claimed he wanted to protect free speech and put a stop to no platforming, so how concerned was he by last week’s campaign by Tory MPs to cancel a broadcaster?”
The Labour leader said it was not Lineker that was putting BBC impartiality at risk but “cancel culture addicts” on the Tory benches and a “BBC leadership that caves into their demands”.
Starmer demanded reassurances that “no one with links to the Tory party” was involved in the decision to have Lineker taken off air.
Sunak accused Starmer of “political opportunism” and seeking to jump on a “political bandwagon”.
Tory MPs continuing their attacks on Lineker include former minister John Hayes, who yesterday branded the presenter “self-indulgent, out of touch, insensitive, avaricious, smug and arrogant” for voicing his criticism of the government’s crackdown on people seeking asylum.
Jonathan Gullis, the MP for Stoke-on-Trent North, also accused Lineker of calling voters in the so-called red wall “Nazis” and “racist bigots”, which he did not.
In the wake of the row the BBC is conducting a review of its social media guidance for staff.