Sir Keir Starmer was on Monday night bundled into a police car to protect him from a group of protesters, as MPs blamed Boris Johnson’s claims about Jimmy Savile.

Sir Keir, the Labour leader, was confronted by anti-lockdown protesters in Westminster. The protesters followed him and David Lammy, the shadow foreign secretary, along Victoria Embankment, accusing Sir Keir of “protecting paedophiles”.

The group repeated an accusation made by Mr Johnson in the Commons last week, when he suggested Sir Keir had been responsible for the failure to prosecute Savile for the sexual abuse of children.

Protesters shouted Savile’s name at Sir Keir, protested about the arrest of Julian Assange and demonstrated against lockdowns and Covid restrictions. In videos of the incident posted online, Sir Keir can be seen being bundled into a police car to protect him.

The Metropolitan Police said a man and a woman were arrested at the scene for assault of an emergency worker after a traffic cone was thrown at a police officer.

Last week, Mr Johnson said that, as director of public prosecutions between 2008 and 2013, Sir Keir “spent more time prosecuting journalists and failing to prosecute Jimmy Savile, as far as I can make out”. He was criticised for the comments by his own MPs, while Cabinet ministers, including Rishi Sunak, distanced themselves from his claim.

Mr Johnson later admitted that the Labour leader had personally had “nothing to do” with the Savile case. However, he failed to apologise, prompting the resignation of Munira Mirza, the Downing Street policy chief and one of his closest aides.