Background and career
Sir Keir Rodney Starmer (born 2 September 1962) is a British politician and lawyer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2024 to 2026. He was Leader of the Labour Party from 2020 to 2026 and Leader of the Opposition from 2020 to 2024. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Holborn and St Pancras from 2015 to 2026. Before entering politics, he was a barrister and served as Director of Public Prosecutions from 2008 to 2013. Born in Southwark, London, and raised in Surrey, Starmer was politically active for the Labour Party Young Socialists as a teenager. He graduated as a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Leeds in 1985 and received a Bachelor of Civil Law degree as a member of St Edmund Hall, Oxford, in 1986. After being called to the bar, Starmer worked predominantly in criminal defence, specialising in human rights. He was a human rights adviser to the Northern Ireland Policing Board and became a Queen's Counsel in 2002. During his tenure as Director of Public Prosecutions, the cases he handled included the Stephen Lawrence murder. In the 2014 New Year Honours, he was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB) for services to law and criminal justice. Starmer was elected to the House of Commons at the 2015 general election. He supported the Remain campaign in the 2016 European Union membership referendum and advocated for a second referendum on Brexit. He served under Jeremy Corbyn as Shadow Brexit Secretary and, following Corbyn's resignation after Labour's defeat at the 2019 general election, Starmer won the 2020 party leadership election. As Leader of the Opposition, he moved the Labour Party towards the political centre and claimed to have eliminated antisemitism within the party, but was criticised for breaking his leadership campaign pledges. His party made significant gains at the 2023 and 2024 local elections despite a drop in membership. Starmer led Labour to a landslide victory at the 2024 general election, ending 14 years of Conservative government with the smallest national vote share of any majority government since record-keeping began in 1830. Under Starmer's premiership, his government ended Winter Fuel Payments for some pensioners, implemented an early-release scheme for prisoners to decrease prison overcrowding, and launched a National Violent Disorder Programme following nationwide riots in 2024. Starmer restricted visa conditions, closed legal migration routes, and launched the Border Security Command. His government also established Great British Energy, decriminalised abortion by the pregnant woman herself in England and Wales, and announced changes to workers' and renters' rights, an increase in the minimum wage and investment in a new nuclear power station. In foreign policy, Starmer continued support for Ukraine in the Russo-Ukrainian war and limited support for Israel in Gaza while formally recognising the State of Palestine. His government negotiated free trade agreements with India, the European Union and the United States, and sought to improve relations with China. Starmer proved unpopular with the British public. His net approval rating began slightly positive but fell over the course of his premiership to an average of −46% by November 2025; an Ipsos poll that month indicates he was the least popular prime minister since its records began in 1977. Under Starmer's leadership, the Labour Party suffered deepening unpopularity and a left-wing exodus to the Green Party. Labour saw record electoral losses during the 2025 and May 2026 local elections, which culminated in a leadership crisis and Starmer's decision to resign, which he announced on 22 June. After a leadership election, he resigned on 20 July 2026 and was succeeded by Andy Burnham. On 1 September 2026, he resigned as an MP, triggering the 2026 Holborn and St Pancras by-election.
Keir Rodney Starmer was born on 2 September 1962 in Southwark, south-east London, and raised in Oxted, Surrey. He is the second of four children of Josephine (née Baker), a nurse, and Rodney Starmer, a toolmaker. His mother developed Still's disease. She attended St John's Anglican Church in nearby Hurst Green, while his father was an atheist. He was nominally "brought up Church of England". His parents were both Labour Party supporters, and reputedly named him after the party's first parliamentary leader, Keir Hardie, although Starmer did not confirm this when asked in 2015. Starmer passed the 11-plus examination and gained entry to Reigate Grammar School, which at the time was a voluntary-aided selective grammar school. The school converted into an independent fee-paying school in 1976, while he was a student. The terms of the conversion were such that his parents were not required to pay for his schooling until he turned 16, and when he reached that point, the school, by now a charity, awarded him a bursary that allowed him to complete his education there without any parental contribution. The subjects he chose to study in the sixth form during his last two years at school were mathematics, music, and physics, in which he achieved A level grades of B, B, and C. Among his classmates at Reigate were the musician Norman Cook (Fatboy Slim), with whom Starmer took violin lessons; Andrew Cooper, who later became a Conservative peer; and the future conservative journalist Andrew Sullivan. According to Starmer, he and Sullivan "fought over everything ... Politics, religion. You name it."
After being called to the bar, Starmer worked predominantly in criminal defence, specialising in human rights. He served as a human rights adviser to the Northern Ireland Policing Board, taking silk as a Queen's Counsel in 2002. During his tenure as Director of Public Prosecutions and head of the Crown Prosecution Service, he handled major cases including the Stephen Lawrence murder case. In the 2014 New Year Honours, he was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB) for services to law and criminal justice. Starmer became a barrister in 1987 at the Middle Temple, then a bencher in 2009. He served as a legal officer for the campaign group Liberty until 1990. After joining the Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers, he was its secretary (1988–92), treasurer (1992–95) and executive committee member (1996–99). As part of his involvement in the Haldane Society, he joined an academic trip to the Soviet Union on the eve of its collapse in 1991, meeting the Russian chief justice Vyacheslav Lebedev, led the society's delegation to Northern Ireland during the Troubles, and organised the UK delegation to the 14th Congress of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers in Cape Town in 1996, meeting President Nelson Mandela. Starmer joined the newly founded Doughty Street Chambers in 1990 and worked primarily on human rights matters. Starmer has been called to the Bar in several Caribbean countries, where he defended convicts sentenced to the death penalty. In 1999, he was a junior barrister on Lee Clegg's appeal. Starmer assisted Helen Steel and David Morris in the McLibel case, at the trial and appeal in English courts, also representing them before the European Court of Human Rights. Starmer was appointed Queen's Counsel on 9 April 2002, aged 39. In the same year, he became joint head of Doughty Street Chambers. In 2005 Starmer called his Queen's Counsel appointment "odd" as he had previously expressed support for the abolition of the monarchy. Starmer wrote legal opinions and marched in protest against the Iraq War following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and said in 2015 that he believed the war was "not lawful under international law because there was no UN resolution expressly authorising it". He defended one of the Fairford Five who broke into the RAF Fairford military air base in 2003 and disabled equipment in order to disrupt military operations at the start of the Iraq War.
Starmer served as a human rights defender to the Northern Ireland Policing Board and the Association of Chief Police Officers, and was also a member of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office's Death Penalty Advisory Panel from 2002 to 2008. The Northern Ireland Board was an important part of bringing communities together following the Good Friday Agreement, and Starmer later cited his work on policing in Northern Ireland as being a key influence on his decision to pursue a political career: "Some of the things I thought that needed to change in police services we achieved more quickly than we achieved in strategic litigation ... I came better to understand how you can change by being inside and getting the trust of people". Starmer represented Croatia at the genocide hearings before the International Court of Justice at The Hague in 2014, arguing that Serbia wanted to seize a third of Croatian territory during the Croatian War of Independence and eradicate the Croatian population.
In July 2008 Baroness Scotland, the Attorney General for England and Wales, named Starmer as the new Head of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP). He succeeded Ken Macdonald, who publicly welcomed Starmer's appointment, on 1 November 2008. Starmer was deemed to be bringing a focus on human rights into the legal system. In 2011 he introduced changes that included the "first test paperless hearing". During his time as DPP Starmer dealt with a number of major cases including the Stephen Lawrence murder case, where he brought his murderers to justice. The United states attorney general Eric Holder reportedly secured Starmer's support for the extradition of the Scottish IT expert Gary McKinnon, who in 2001 had hacked into US military databases looking for information on Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs), on an interdict that could have led to a seventy-year jail sentence. The extradition was eventually blocked by Theresa May during her premiership. In February 2010, Starmer announced the CPS's decision to prosecute three Labour MPs and a Conservative peer for offences relating to false accounting in the aftermath of the parliamentary expenses scandal; all were found guilty. Starmer prioritised rapid prosecutions of rioters over long sentences during the 2011 England riots, which he later concluded helped to bring "the situation back under control". In February 2012 Starmer announced that Chris Huhne would be prosecuted for perverting the course of justice, stating in relation to the case that "[w]here there is sufficient evidence we do not shy away from prosecuting politicians". In 2012 the journalist Nick Cohen published allegations that Starmer was personally responsible for allowing the prosecution of Paul Chambers to proceed, in what became known as the "Twitter joke trial". The CPS denied that Starmer was behind the decision, saying that it was the responsibility of a Crown Court and was out of Starmer's hands. When Jimmy Savile's sexual abuse crimes were exposed in 2012, Starmer said amid the subsequent scandal that "It was like a dam had bust and people rightfully wanted to know why he had been allowed to get away with it for so long." In 2013 Starmer announced changes to how sexual abuse investigations were to be handled amid Operation Yewtree, including a panel to review complaints. Starmer stepped down as Director of Public Prosecutions in November 2013, and was succeeded by Alison Saunders. Starmer was awarded several honorary degrees between 2011 and 2014, and was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB) in the 2014 New Year Honours for "services to law and criminal justice".
My predecessor, the Right Hon. Frank Dobson, to whom I pay tribute, was a powerful advocate of the rights of everyone in Holborn and St Pancras throughout his highly distinguished parliamentary career. Widely respected and widely regarded, he served the people of Holborn and St Pancras for 36 years. Although I doubt I will clock up 36 years, I intend to follow in Frank Dobson's footsteps—albeit my jokes are likely to seem tame when compared with his, and I might give the beard a miss. Starmer was selected in December 2014 as the Labour parliamentary candidate for the constituency of Holborn and St Pancras, a Labour safe seat, following the decision of Frank Dobson, its sitting MP, to retire. Starmer was elected at the 2015 general election with a majority of 17,048 (receiving 52.9 per cent of the vote). He was returned at the 2017 general election with an increased majority of 30,509 (70.1 per cent) at the 2019 general election with a reduced majority of 27,763 (64.9 per cent), and at the 2024 general election with a further reduced majority of 18,884 (48.9 per cent). During the 2016 European Union membership referendum, Starmer supported the Britain Stronger in Europe campaign for the UK to remain in the European Union (EU). A member of the parliamentary groups Labour Friends of Israel and Labour Friends of Palestine and the Middle East, Starmer was urged by a number of activists to stand in the 2015 Labour Party leadership election following the resignation of Ed Miliband as Leader of the Labour Party after Labour's defeat at the 2015 general election; he ruled this out, citing his relative lack of political experience at the time. During the leadership election Starmer supported Andy Burnham, who finished second to Jeremy Corbyn.
