Keir Starmer

**Sir Keir Rodney Starmer**  (born 2 September 1962) is a British politician and barrister who has been the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom since 5 July 2024. He has been the leader of the Labour Party since 2020. He was the Leader of the Opposition from 2020 until 2024. Since 2015, he has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Holborn and St Pancras, a constituency of the UK Parliament in Inner London.

Starmer was the Shadow Brexit Secretary in Jeremy Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet. He was Director of Public Prosecutions and Head of the Crown Prosecution Service from 2008 to 2013.

## Early life

Keir Rodney Starmer was born on 2 September 1962 in Southwark, London. He grew up in the town of Oxted in Surrey. His parents were Labour Party supporters, and reportedly named him after the party's first parliamentary leader, Keir Hardie.

In his teenage years, Starmer was active in Labour politics; he was a member of the Labour Party Young Socialists at the age of 16.

Starmer received his Bachelor of Laws at the University of Leeds and his Bachelor of Civil Law from St Edmund Hall, Oxford.

## Legal career

Starmer became a barrister in 1987. He was a legal officer for the campaign group Liberty until 1990. Starmer was a member of Doughty Street Chambers.

Starmer worked in several Caribbean countries, where he defended convicts sentenced to the death penalty. In 2005, Starmer stated "I got made a Queen’s Counsel, which is odd since I often used to propose the abolition of the monarchy".

Starmer was a human rights adviser 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.

In July 2008, Starmer became the new head of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and Director of Public Prosecutions. In 2011, he introduced reforms that included the "first test paperless hearing". Starmer stepped down as Director of Public Prosecutions in November 2013. He was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB) in the 2014 New Year Honours for services to law and criminal justice.

## Political career

Starmer was selected in December 2014 to be the Labour parliamentary candidate for the Labour UK constituency of Holborn and St Pancras, replacing Frank Dobson. Starmer was elected at the 2015 general election with a majority of 17,048. He was re-elected at the 2017 general election with an increased majority of 30,509, and re-elected again at the 2019 general election. In June 2024, Starmer was re-elected as the Labour candidate for Holborn and St Pancras at the 2024 general election.

He was a backbencher at first and Starmer supported the unsuccessful Britain Stronger in Europe campaign in the 2016 European Union membership referendum. Many people wanted him to replace Ed Miliband as Leader of the Labour Party in 2015, but he decided against running because he thought he did not have the experience for the role. During the leadership election, Starmer supported Andy Burnham, who finished second to Jeremy Corbyn.

In Corbyn's shadow government, Starmer was the Shadow Minister for Immigration. In June 2016, Starmer resigned from this role in protest of Corbyn's leadership. Following Corbyn's win in the 2016 Labour Party leadership election in September, Starmer accepted a new job under Corbyn as Shadow Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, replacing Emily Thornberry.

### Labour leader

In January 2020, Starmer announced his candidacy for Labour Leader in the 2020 election. On 4 April 2020, Starmer was elected as leader of the Labour Party, and as the Labour had the second most number of seats in the House of Commons, this made him the Leader of the Opposition. He was elected as leader of the Labour Party in the first round of voting using the single transferable vote (stv) method of voting. Starmer won with 275,780 votes (56.2%). He got 40,417 (53.13%) of the  affiliates vote, 225,135 (56.07%) of the Labour Party members vote, and 10,228 (78.64%) of the registered supporters vote.

## Prime Minister

In July 2024, Starmer led Labour to a landslide victory in the 2024 general election, ending fourteen years of Conservative government with Labour becoming the largest party in the House of Commons. In his victory speech, Starmer thanked party workers for their hard work.

As the leader of the majority party in the House of Commons, Starmer was appointed as prime minister by Charles III on 5 July 2024, becoming the first Labour prime minister since Gordon Brown and the first one to win a general election since Tony Blair. Starmer later went on a tour of the four countries of the United Kingdom and met with leaders including John Swinney, Kate Forbes, Michelle O'Neill and Vaughan Gething. He also met with mayors including Andy Burnham and Sadiq Khan.

Starmer began picking his cabinet ministers after he became prime minister. His cabinet has had many female political representation, appointing women to a record half of the Cabinet (including Rachel Reeves as the first female Chancellor of the Exchequer in British history) and three of the five top positions in the British government, including Angela Rayner as his Deputy Prime Minister. His cabinet has the most female ministers in the country's history.

Starmer has supported Israel in its war against Hamas, but has also called for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, having been against a ceasefire at first.

In May 2025, Keir Starmer defended before the House of Commons the agreement to return the Chagos Archipelago to Mauritius, located in the British Indian Ocean Territory, which notably houses a British and American military base.

## Personal life

Starmer is an atheist, but has said that he "does believe in faith", and its power to bring people together.

## Other websites

- CPS

## Infobox (officeholder)

- **embed**: yes
- **office3**: Shadow cabinet, Shadow Secretary of State
- **subterm3**: 2016–2020
- **suboffice3**: Shadow Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, Exiting the European Union
- **office4**: Shadow cabinet, Shadow Minister
- **subterm4**: 2015–2016
- **suboffice4**: Shadow Cabinet of Jeremy Corbyn, Immigration


## Infobox (officeholder)

- **honorific-prefix**: The Right Honourable
- **name**: Sir Keir Starmer
- **image**: Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer Official Portrait (cropped).jpg
- **caption**: Official portrait, 2024
- **office**: 58th Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
- **monarch**: Charles III
- **term start**: 5 July 2024
- **predecessor**: Rishi Sunak
- **office1**: Leader of the Opposition (United Kingdom), Leader of the Opposition
- **deputy1**: Angela Rayner
- **term start1**: 4 April 2020
- **term end1**: 5 July 2024
- **predecessor1**: Jeremy Corbyn
- **successor1**: Rishi Sunak
- **office2**: Leader of the Labour Party (UK), Leader of the Labour Party
- **deputy2**: Angela Rayner
Lucy Powell
- **term start2**: 4 April 2020
- **predecessor2**: Jeremy Corbyn
- **term start5**: 7 May 2015
- **predecessor5**: Frank Dobson
- **majority5**: 11,572 (30.0%)
- **office6**: Director of Public Prosecutions (England and Wales), Director of Public Prosecutions
- **appointer6**: Patricia Scotland
- **term start6**: 1 November 2008
- **term end6**: 1 November 2013
- **predecessor6**: Ken Macdonald
- **successor6**: Alison Saunders
- **birth name**: Keir Rodney Starmer
- **birth place**: London, England
- **party**: Labour Party (UK), Labour
- **children**: 2
- **signature**: Keir Starmer signature.svg
- **deputy**: Angela Rayner
David Lammy