Labour's Emily Thornberry claims it's 'fact' Sunak doesn't support jailing sex offenders

Thornberry told GB News the party had no regrets over the choice of posters.

She said: “What I say is, are there objective facts in this? Yes.

"Rishi Sunak is in charge of the Government. And this Government has been in power for 13 years and during that time, the criminal justice system has collapsed.

"It is in the most terrible state. And Keir Starmer, has dedicated his life to ensuring that the criminal justice system works properly.

"And he feels very strongly about this and is being very blunt about it. And yeah, we stand by this. If Rishi Sunak really wanted to stop child sex offenders from staying out of jail, he could do something about it, but he is not doing anything about it.

"They are not taking their failures seriously, and they should be doing a great deal more than they are."

During her interview with GB News, the shadow attorney general continued: "During the two years when Suella Braverman was the Attorney General 29 cases were sent to her of child sex abuse, and she sent only two of them to the Court of Appeal even though those people had not been given immediate custodial sentences.

"There were details of 100 child pornographers sent to her and she sent, I believe, nine to the Court of Appeal.

''It is disgraceful, they do not take this matter seriously. And Labour does. Keir Starmer does. And we're going to do something about it.

"We have too few police, too few arrests, and the long waits to get into court are too long. And then when you get to court the judges are being told by the Lord Chief Justice to think twice about sending people to prison because the prisons are so crowded.

"The fact is that if Rishi Sunak wanted to do something about it, he could do something about it and he hasn't, and the Tories haven't."

The ad is understood to have caused unease among the Shadow Cabinet, with members such as shadow culture secretary Lucy Powell declining to endorse the campaign.

Senior party figures including former home secretary Lord David Blunkett have also called for the ad to be withdrawn, arguing that Labour is better than the “gutter” politics.

Further adverts scheduled to drop ahead of the May local elections are to include one suggesting Sunak thinks it is right that the public is paying for the “Conservatives crashing the economy” through higher housing costs.