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Keir Starmer

Keir Starmer is a husband, father, and former Chief Prosecutor. His entire career has been about securing justice for those that need it. From representing people on death row as a human rights lawyer, to working on setting up the Northern Ireland Police Board in the wake of the Good Friday agreement, to making the law work for victims as Chief Prosecutor. He was elected leader of the Labour Party in 2020 to continue this work.

Keir grew up in a small town called Oxted, in Surrey. The fact he grew up in a small town in Surrey — Oxted — where the rich and poor lived and studied side by side, meant that he feels these small class snobberies acutely in a way, perhaps, that those in straightforwardly working-class places did not. His fathe worked as a toolmaker in a factory and his mother was a nurse for the NHS. Like many families, they faced challenges. His mum battled a rare, severe illness for all her life. Keir spent lots of his childhood seeing his mum go into hospital, where his father would always be at her side. Despite the challenges this presented for Keir, he was hugely influenced by his mother’s courage and determination to live her life despite her illness. It also gave him a deep gratitude for the NHS.

At school he worked hard to sit the 11-plus and passed, then going to a local grammar school. When he was 18 years old, he got a place at Leeds University to study law, becoming the first in his family to go to university. Keir was obsessed with football and still plays every Sunday with friends. He describes himself as a “box-to-box midfield general,” although his teammates may have different views. A lifelong Arsenal fan, he has a season ticket at the Emirates, where he attends with his children.

From 1986 to 1987, Starmer served as the editor of Socialist Alternatives, a Trotskyist radical magazine. The magazine was produced by an organisation under the same name, which represented the British section of the pro-self-management, ex-Trotskyist group, the International Revolutionary Marxist Tendency. In Socialist Alternatives, the young Starmer wrote earnestly about the creation of a ‘self-managing socialism’ that would be ‘based on democratic control of production for “use” rather than “profit”.’

Keir got his qualifications as a lawyer in 1987 and began working as a barrister. He spent a lot of his time providing free legal advice defending ordinary people against the powerful. He worked on some high-profile cases, taking on fights against the odds with Shell and McDonalds, as well as working with the National Union of Mineworkers to prevent the Tories’ pit closures. After that, Keir was the legal advisor to the Northern Ireland Policing Board for five years. The board was an important part of bringing communities together following the Good Friday Agreement. It was during this time when Keir first met his wife, Victoria, who now works for the NHS. Keir and Victoria married in 2007. The couple have two children.

In 2008, Keir became Director of Public Prosecutions, putting him at the head of the Crown Prosecution Service and its thousands of employees. During that time there were big cuts to public services, and Keir had to reform the service to make sure it still delivered the justice people rightly expect of the system. As well as changing the way the CPS worked, he was involved in seeing through some important cases, that had a big impact on society to this day. He helped bring Stephen Lawrence’s murderers to justice, changed the guidance to better support for victims of sexual and domestic violence, and prosecuted MPs for misuse of expenses. Keir received a knighthood in 2014 for his services to criminal justice. He proudly invited his parents to Buckingham Palace for the event, who in turn brought along the family dog.

Later in life, Keir’s drive to make the world a fairer place saw him enter politics. He was first elected to Parliament in 2015, at the age of 52. He served as the member for Holborn and St Pancras, where he has lived for many years with his family. He was Shadow Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union (2016-2020) and Shadow Immigration Minister (2015-2016). In April 2020, Keir was elected as Leader of the Labour Party.

He had been a member of the pro-US, pro-market think tank, the Trilateral Commission, since 2018. Other members of this rather secretive organisation included not only Henry Kissinger but as many as seven former heads of the CIA and various other US intelligence agencies. Starmer was prepared to smear his fellow front-bencher, Rebecca Long-Bailey, as a purveyor of ‘anti-Semitic conspiracy theories’, and observers anticipated this ‘cop in an expensive suit’ won’t hesitate to slander and persecute any and all genuinely left-wing activists.

He was keen to reassure the entire British establishment that the Labour Party would be a ‘most loyal’ opposition. When asked what he thought of the Black Lives Matter proposal to defund the police in order to spend more on education and other provisions that offer people real alternatives to crime, his response was unequivocal: "I was director of public prosecutions for five years, I worked with police forces across England and Wales, bringing thousands of people to court, so my support for the police is very, very strong … I don’t have any truck with what [Black Lives Matter] is saying about defunding the police or anything else. That’s just nonsense."

In ‘The Case Against Keir Starmer’, Oliver Eagleton runs through Starmer’s dubious positions on the Iraq War, Trident, state surveillance, Julian Assange and welfare cuts, as well as his apparent reluctance to prosecute the police officers who killed Jean Charles de Menezes and Ian Tomlinson. Eagleton writes: [As head of the CPS, Starmer] "drew up rules that gave police officers more power to arrest demonstrators, in an attempt to crack down on ‘significant disruption’ after the 2010 student protests. Officers were encouraged to arrest those ‘equipped with clothes or masks to prevent identification, items that could be considered body protection, or an item that can be used as a weapon’. Appended to these instructions was a warning: ‘criminals bent on disruption and disorder…will not get an easy ride’.... Starmer appears to show that there are few as zealous as those who’ve converted."

Starmer is a centrist who worked to fight antisemitism in his party. Starmer took the helm of Labour following its electoral defeat in 2019 under Jeremy Corbyn, a staunchly left-wing leader and harsh critic of Israel. Under Corbyn’s leadership, he and the party faced repeated allegations of antisemitism, and lost Jewish supporters in droves. Starmer, whose wife, Victoria, is Jewish, made a concerted effort to root out antisemitism. Labour blocked Corbyn from running with the party and implemented the recommendations of a government commission investigating antisemitism in its ranks.

The Chakrabarti Inquiry, an investigation during summer 2016 into anti-Semitism within the Labour ranks. That report had concluded racism, including anti-Semitism, was not endemic within Labour. Subsequently, charges of anti-Semitism were concocted to crush Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

When Starmer assumed the helm of Labou, he pledged to “tear out this poison [Labour Party anti-Semitism] by its roots”. A “crisis of anti-Semitism” that engulfed the British Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn. the party’s bureaucrats, whose nominal function is to serve the interests of the party, attempted to undermine members supportive of Jeremy Corbyn, Labour’s leader from 2015 to 2020. Internal party documents, social media data and covert recordings reveal how senior Labour officials attempted to undermine support for Corbyn and, on some occasions, to silence debate about Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. Starmer and the Labour right weaponised it against the Corbyn left.

Starmer displayed an iron determination to manage the revolt on his party’s Left, in which Jermey Corbyn had formed the most working class cabinet to run Britain since at least the Seventies, and not coincidentally the first to target private schools as its signature policy. The failed Corbynista attempt to radicalise the Labour Party attracted many young people in the UK who imagined it was possible to combine Labour Party reformism with social movement activism in a genuine anti-capitalist direction, with an appeal to explore class struggle anarchist communism rather than the alternatives on offer from the Trotskyist influenced sects.

A donations scandal dominated headlines for weeks. Starmer, whose annual salary was about 167,000 pounds ($218,000), had declared receiving freebies worth more than 100,000 pounds ($131,000) over the past five years. He had accepted more gifts than any other member of parliament (MP) during this period, including some after being elected as PM. News of the accommodation costs, pricey glasses, Taylor Swift concert tickets, football match tickets, clothing and other giveaways he has embraced angered the British public, many of whom are still grappling with a cost-of-living crisis.

Keir Starmer suggested 17 September 2024 he will continue accepting donors’ gifts. But there is a crucial difference between the appearance of greed and the sort of ethical leadership he promised. Taking gifts of any substantial value gives the impression of greed when it is accepted by someone who could quite easily afford to buy the stuff themselves. The Prime Minister has faced weeks of criticism for accepting tens of thousands of pounds worth of gifts. Sir Keir Starmer has paid back £6,000 in gifts and hospitality he received since entering Number 10 amid a row over donations. Downing Street said the Prime Minister was covering the cost of six Taylor Swift tickets, four to the races and a clothing rental agreement with a high-end designer favoured by his wife, Lady Victoria Starmer.

The Labour leader and other Cabinet members faced weeks of criticism for accepting tens of thousands of pounds worth of freebies from donors. Gifts paid for by Starmer include four Taylor Swift tickets from Universal Music Group totalling £2,800, two from the Football Association at a cost of £598, and four to Doncaster Races from Arena Racing Corporation at £1,939.

There are no credible or significant allegations of bribery or improper gifts against Keir Starmer. As a high-profile political figure and the Leader of the Opposition, Starmer is subject to rules regarding the acceptance and declaration of gifts, donations, and hospitality, which are strictly regulated in UK politics. UK Members of Parliament (MPs), including party leaders like Starmer, are required to declare gifts, donations, and hospitality they receive above a certain value. These declarations are made publicly through the Register of Members’ Financial Interests to ensure transparency and accountability.

Left-wing Labour MP Rosie Duffield resigned from the Labour Party, telling Starmer in her resignation letter “your sleaze, nepotism and apparent avarice are off the scale… I am so ashamed of what you and your inner circle have done to tarnish and humiliate our once great party.” Duffield also pointed out the rank hypocrisy of a person of “far above average wealth” having “accepted expensive personal gifts of designer suits and glasses” while at the same time abolishing the pensioner winter fuel benefit. She ended her letter by saying “I hope to be able to return to the party in the future, when it again resembles the party I love, putting the needs of the many before the greed of the few.”

Keir Starmer, as he marked his first 100 days in office as the British prime minister (PM) on 12 October 2024, was unpopular. According to an October 8 YouGov poll, the 62-year-old former lawyer’s favourability ratings have plummeted to the lowest level since he took over as Labour leader in 2020, his popularity having declined further since becoming PM. More than six in 10 Britons now dislike Starmer, YouGov reported. “It’s easily the worst start to a government’s time in office in living memory – and it wasn’t as if Labour were that popular anyway,” Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London, told Al Jazeera.