Sir Keir finally spoke about the incident for the first time (Image: Getty)
Keir Starmer has finally broken his silence following his infamous ‘sausage’ gaffe during this week’s Labour Party conference speech.
While delivering his address to Labour members, the Prime Minister accidentally called for a “release of the sausages”, instead of “the hostages”, in regards to the ongoing war between and Hamas.
The clip went instantly viral, spawning memes, mockery and criticism on social media.
After four days of hoping to forget about the moment, Sir Keir was finally asked about it while on his visit to the United Nations in New York.
Sir Keir was asked why he said it, with a journalist joking: “Were you hungry?”. They also suggested it may have been in his autocue.
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The Prime Minister grimaced, responding: “Was it in the autocue? I just managed the beginning of the word.”
He hit back: “Have you never done that?”
When the journalist responded “all the time”, Sir Keir quipped: “These things are there to give you an opportunity to rib me.”
Sir Keir’s awkward gaffe was not the first time a leader’s conference speech ended up being remembered for all the wrong reasons.
In 2015 Ed Miliband attempted to copy David Cameron by memorising his speech rather than reading it from an autocue. However it later emerged he had forgotten the entire section on the deficit.
In 2016 Jeremy Corbyn’s use of an autocue didn’t help him, as he accidentally read out the delivery instructions of “strong message here”.
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Theresa May’s 2017 speech was calamitous for a number of reasons, including her coughing all the way through, being handed a P45 notice by a prankster, and the letters falling of the backdrop.
Sir Keir’s sausage gaffe saw him ribbed by the official Conservative Party X account, who used a Star Wars meme to mock up a title screen for “Return of the Sausages”.
Despite calling for the hostages to be released, his speech still ended up being upstaged by a lone pro-Palestine protester who shouted with demands for the Labour leader to take a more pro-Gaza position.
Sir Keir quipped in response: “This guy has obviously got a pass from the 2019 conference.”
He added: “While he’s been protesting we’ve got a Labour government.”
He will have been thankful that the protest was more low-key than that during his previous year’s speech, when an activist ran on stage and threw glitter on him.