KEIR Starmer has been “hoist on his own petard” after it was revealed he had breached the code of conduct for MPs eight times.

The breaches concerned gifts from football clubs and companies, as well as the sale of a plot of land worth more than £100,000, which were not declared on time.

The Labour leader – who allies described as “Mr Rules” while he was being investigated for potential lockdown breaches (he was later cleared) – was found to have broken the rules a total of eight times by a parliament sleaze watchdog.

Before he was cleared of wrongdoing by Durham Police, Starmer found himself subject to accusations of hypocrisy by Tory MPs because he had demanded Boris Johnson resign when the Prime Minister found himself under police investigation.

The Labour leader has been accused of over-emphasising character over policy in his battle to oust the Conservatives from power, Alba has said.

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Chris McEleny, the party’s general secretary, said: “Starmer chose to focus on personalities over the past two years over policy so he will be hoist with his own petard on this issue. 

“It is clearer every day that it doesn’t matter who the next Prime Minister is, they will be completely out of touch with the cost of living crisis that people are living with.

“Meanwhile, Scots are asking themselves why are energy bills soaring when we live in an energy-rich nation that generates enough electricity to power every home from renewables and we are self-sufficient in oil and gas. 

“London Labour and the Tories only care about protecting capital and winning support in the south-east of England, whereas ours is a movement to protect the interests of the people of Scotland and to win their hearts and minds to regain our independence as an immediate priority.”

The SNP said this exposed Labour's "staggering hypocrisy".

Kirsten Oswald MP told The National: “The hypocrisy from Labour in recent days has been staggering.

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“While branch office manager Anas Sarwar has been busy issuing papers on transparency, his bosses in London clearly didn’t bother reading it following the numerous breaches of the code of conduct by Keir Starmer.”

Starmer was investigated by Parliamentary Standards Commissioner Kathryn Stone, who found he had broken the rules eight times – five more counts than he had originally been accused of in the initial complaint against him.

She said the breaches were “minor and/or inadvertent, and that there was no deliberate attempt to mislead” and so did not refer him to the Committee on Standards, which happens in more serious cases.

A Labour Party spokesperson said: “Keir Starmer takes his responsibilities to the Register very seriously and has apologised to the Commissioner for this inadvertent error.

“He has assured the Commissioner that his office processes have been reviewed to ensure this doesn’t happen again.”