Penny Mordaunt said Sir Keir Starmer has “zero balls” as she compared him to Beach Ken from the Barbie film.
The Conservative Cabinet minister hit back at the Labour leader after he branded Rishi Sunak “inaction man” during Prime Minister’s Questions yesterday.
Responding to shadow Commons leader Lucy Powell at Business Questions earlier today, Ms Mordaunt said: “She echoes the hilarious gag the Leader of the Opposition made yesterday to attempt to insult the Prime Minister by comparing him to a popular children’s figurine. I am happy to focus on that.
“I don’t think that line will survive contact with the Prime Minister’s work rate, but let me rise to the bait and return the serve, because I think the Labour leader is Beach Ken.
“Beach Ken stands for nothing on shifting sands, in his flip-flops, staring out to sea, doing nothing constructive to stop small boats or grow the economy.
“When we examine his weak record on union demands, on border control, on protecting the public and stopping small boats, we discover that like Beach Ken he has zero balls.”
In Greta Gerwig’s summer blockbuster Barbie, the doll’s companion Ken played by Ryan Gosling has an existential crisis after realising his job is “just beach”.
Laughter could be heard from MPs in the chamber following the brutal takedown by the Commons Leader.
Ms Mordaunt also accused Sir Keir of being “Mr Open Borders” as she took aim at new plans unveiled by Labour to tackle the small boats crisis.
She said: “The leader of her party today is showing himself again to be Mr Open Borders.
“He wanted the Home Office to stop all deportation flights, he wanted free movement, he is mooting taking 100,000 illegal immigrants from the safety of the EU and bringing them here to the UK, and he is planning on reversing the ban that we have brought in for people to be able to claim asylum if they come here illegally.”
Sir Keir’s plans include a potential deal with Brussels to take a quota of asylum seekers who arrive in the bloc in return for people who cross the Channel.
He has also pledged an anti-terrorism-style international crackdown on people smuggling gangs.
Elsewhere in the Commons session, Ms Mordaunt dished out her weekly humiliation to her SNP counterpart Deidre Brock.
The senior Tory MP said: “Scotland deserves better than socialist, separatist parties and yet again she has demonstrated that the SNP are yesterday’s people talking about yesterday’s grievances, they are yesterday’s party.”
The nationalist politician had earlier said of Ms Mordaunt: “We all understand the difficulties of defending this tired, hollowed-out bunch on its last legs but that’s her job – for the moment anyway.”
