At the Durham event, shortly before the Hartlepool by-election and local elections, a Labour Party campaign team of seventeen people, including Starmer and deputy leader Angela Rayner, used the office of MP Mary Foy.

Next day, The Sun published a brief story including Labour's statement that this was a permissible work event, and pictures from the video showing Starmer with a beer while others ate a takeaway.

On 30 April 2021, six days before the 6 May 2021 Hartlepool by-election and local elections, Keir Starmer joined campaigning in Hull,[2][3] then travelled to Durham, where he was to arrive at his hotel at 6:30 pm.

[4] He walked from there to join a Labour Party campaign team in local MP Mary Foy's office premises which form part of the Durham Miners' Hall.

[18][19] The student's video was initially forwarded to friends, and then to anti-lockdown activists including Reclaim Party leader Laurence Fox who uploaded it to his Twitter account at 8:42 a.m. next morning, Saturday 1 May 2021.

[18][23][24] Political correspondent Andrew Sparrow at The Guardian said it suited Conservatives defending Johnson to suggest that the single Durham event showed that "all politicians broke the rules", and they made the story a minor line of attack.

[20] On 8 December 2021, at PMQs, after a video clip from a year earlier showed Downing Street Press Secretary Allegra Stratton laughing about lockdown parties, Starmer accused Johnson of "taking the public for fools" and doubted his "moral authority to lead".

"[22][27] ITV News journalist Paul Brand related this to The Sun's story about the Durham event, which had shown the photograph of Starmer with a beer in an election "booze row".

[23] Johnson came under increasing pressure, including from Conservatives,[18] after allegations that his Secretary Martin Reynolds had invited over a hundred staff to "socially distanced drinks".

Johnson apologised at PMQs on 12 January 2022 for briefly attending the drinks party, but said he "believed implicitly that this was a work event" which "could be said technically to fall within the guidance."

"[32][33] Starmer contrasted the Durham statement with the Metropolitan Police (Met) announcement on 25 January that it was investigating alleged Partygate events only where there was evidence of a "serious and flagrant breach" of regulations, and "little ambiguity around the absence of any reasonable defence".

Sue Gray's interim report released on 31 January had shown that by then the Met was investigating twelve Partygate events, including six which Johnson might have attended.

"[34] Referring to the Met's issuing of FPNs to Johnson, Chancellor Rishi Sunak, and others who had attended a Partygate gathering, Conservative MP Richard Holden wrote to Durham Constabulary on 22 April, saying "In light of that decision, and the tests applied by Metropolitan Police for the level of a Covid regulations brief, I believe there is a strong public interest in Durham Constabulary reviewing its decision not to investigate the Starmer incident further."

"[36] Holden's letter contained two claims, the first being a Facebook invitation to a quiz night on the date Starmer was filmed, implying it referred to an in-person event.

indy100 reported accusations that she had shared "fake news" and that the Daily Mail had cropped the image from a photo of Starmer and Frank Dobson, who died in 2019.

[43] The Evening Standard said that Cabinet ministers Dorries, Anne-Marie Trevelyan, Grant Shapps, and Ben Wallace had increased pressure on Durham police to reopen their investigation.

[47] When the purdah period on the elections ended on Friday 6 May, Durham police stated that, "following the receipt of significant new information over recent days", an investigation "into potential breaches of Covid-19 regulations relating to this gathering" was being conducted.

"[37] On Saturday 7 May Diane Abbott, who was Shadow Home Secretary under the previous Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, expressed her view that Starmer should "consider his position" if he were to receive an FPN from the police, but did not believe that he would get one.

The document included a reminder to "arrange takeaway from Spice Lounge", a local Indian restaurant, as Starmer's last work activity of the day, and the meal reportedly arrived late.

[5] Politico reported, on the morning of 9 May, that an unnamed source "familiar with what happened that night" said that some junior staffers at the event were drunk "and obviously weren't working so I remember thinking: why are they here?"

[62] Starmer stated his intent to demonstrate "different principles to the prime minister" (who had already been given an FPN for a breach at Downing Street), and said, "The idea that I would casually break the rules is wrong.

He stated, "If the police decide to issue me with an FPN, I would of course do the right thing and step down", adding, "The British public deserve politicians who think the rules apply to them.

Its position was described by The Guardian as inconsistent, noting that the editorial comment in the Daily Mail said "Superficially of course, he appears to be doing the decent thing, though frankly, he didn't have much choice."

It said some of Starmer's supporters assumed that Durham police would be reluctant to give him an FPN because in May 2021 they had concluded that Dominic Cummings might have committed a minor breach of lockdown rules at Barnard Castle but that no action would be taken.

Crossbench peer Ken Macdonald, Starmer's predecessor as director of public prosecutions, said from his experience the police would ignore such pressure, and if anything focus more strongly on deciding for themselves.

On 2 May 2021, North West Durham Labour had posted a picture on Twitter with a tweet saying "interrupted Keir Starmer while he was hard at work [on Friday] to proudly show him our Consett AFC strip ahead of their historic FA Vase final".

"[1] After saying she was delighted, Mary Foy added that it was "unfortunate that the desire of some Conservative politicians has led to so much of Durham Police's time being focused on a matter that was already investigated, especially when their resources are already under significant pressure".

[78] Richard Holden, Conservative MP for North West Durham, tweeted "@DurhamPolice find, after looking at significant new information, that #beergate was 'reasonably necessary work'.

"[79] Michael Barton, former chief constable of Durham Constabulary, said: "It had all the hallmarks of a political smear campaign, not a fair and justified criminal investigation", and had "taken experienced detectives away from proper police work.

"[81] In the Commons debate when the final Sue Gray report into Partygate was released on 25 May 2022, Starmer stated he had "not broken any rules, and any attempt to compare a perfectly legal takeaway while working to this catalogue of criminality looks even more ridiculous today, but if the police decide otherwise, I will do the decent thing and step down.