Who is Keir Starmer, the Labor leader favored to win the July 4 British elections?

LONDON — Worried, managerial, a bit boring Keir Starmer No one has the idea of ​​a firebrand politician.

Labor hopes this is exactly what Britain wants and needs after 14 turbulent years of Tory rule. Starmer, the 61-year-old leader of the center-left party, is the current favorite to win the country. July 4th Election.

Starmer spent four years as leader of the opposition, taking his social democratic party from the left to the political center. His message to voters is that a Labor government will bring reassuring rather than frightening change.

A vote for Labor is a vote for economic and political stability, Starmer said after Prime Minister Rishi Sunakcalled the elections May 22.

If opinion polls showing Labour's consistent double-digit lead hold true on election day, Starmer will become Britain's first Labour prime minister since 2010.

A barrister who served as chief prosecutor for England and Wales between 2008 and 2013, Starmer is caricatured by his opponents as a left-wing London barrister. He was knighted for his role as head of the Crown Prosecution Service, and Conservative opponents like to use his title, Sir Keir Starmer, to portray him as elitist and out of touch with reality.

Starmer prefers to emphasize his common man credentials and humble roots, in implicit contrast to Sunak, who is a former Goldman Sachs banker married to the daughter of a billionaire.

He loves football, still plays the sport at weekends and loves nothing more than watching Premier League team Arsenal over a beer in his local pub. He and his wife Victoria, who works in occupational health, have two teenage children whom they work to keep out of the public eye.

Born in 1963, Starmer is the son of a toolmaker and a nurse who named him after Keir Hardie, the first leader of the Labour Party. One of four children, he grew up in a cash-strapped family in a small town outside London.

“These have been tough times,” he said in a campaign launch speech. “I know what it feels like to have inflation out of control, and how the rising cost of living can make us dread the mailman: Will he bring us another bill we can’t pay?”

We used to go with the phone bill because when it was cut off it was always the easiest way to go without it.

Starmer's mother suffered from a chronic illness, Still's disease, which left her in pain, and Starmer said visiting her in hospital and helping to care for her had helped him become a strong supporter of the state-funded National Health Service.

He was the first in his family to go to university, studying law at Leeds University and Oxford, and practised human rights law before being appointed chief prosecutor.

He entered politics in his 50s and was elected to Parliament in 2015. He was often at odds with party leader Jeremy Corbyn, a staunch socialist, at one point quitting the party leadership over disagreements, but agreed to serve as Labour's Brexit spokesman under Corbyn.

Starmer faced repeated questions over the decision and his call for voters to support Corbyn in the 2019 election.

He said he wanted to stay and fight to change the Labour Party, arguing that leaders are temporary but political parties are permanent.

After Corbyn led Labour to electoral defeats in 2017 and 2019 (the party's worst result since 1935), Labour chose Starmer to lead the rebuilding effort.

His leadership coincided with a period of turbulence that saw Britain weather the COVID-19 pandemic, leave the EU, absorb the economic shock of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and endure the economic turmoil of crisis. Liz Truss an eventful 49-day term as prime minister in 2022.

Voters are weary of the cost of living crisis, a wave of public sector strikes and political turmoil that has seen the Conservative Party oust two prime ministers in a matter of weeks in 2022 Boris Johnson and Truss before setting Sunak up to try to steady the ship.

Starmer has imposed discipline on a party with a well-deserved reputation for internal division, abandoned some of Corbyn's most overtly socialist policies and apologised for the anti-Semitism that an internal investigation found had been allowed to fester under Corbyn.

Starmer has promised a cultural change within the Labor Party. His leitmotif is now to put the country before the party.

Starmer was a staunch opponent of Britain's decision to leave the European Union but now says a Labour government would not seek to reverse that decision.

Critics say the move shows a lack of political principle. Supporters say it is pragmatic and respects the fact that British voters have little desire to revisit the contentious Brexit debate.

Starmer must now persuade voters that a Labour government can ease Britain's chronic housing crisis and fix ailing public services, particularly the health system, but without imposing tax increases or adding to the public debt.

To the dismay of some Labour supporters, he watered down his promise to spend billions on green technology, saying a Labour government would not borrow more to fund public spending.

Many people on the left will accuse him of letting them down, of betraying socialist principles. And many people on the right are accusing him of flip-flopping, said Tim Bale, a political scientist at Queen Mary University of London.

But hey, if that's what it takes to win, then I think that tells you something about Starmer's character. He will do whatever it takes – and he has done whatever it takes – to get into government.

The party rose in the polls under his leadership, helping to keep Starmer's internal critics in camp.

At the party conference in October, he displayed a flash of passion, telling cheering delegates: “I grew up working class. I’ve fought all my life. And I’m not going to stop now.” He also displayed remarkable composure when a protester rushed on stage and doused Starmer in glitter and glue.

Some have compared the election to 1997, when Tony Blair led Labour to a landslide victory after 18 years of Conservative rule.

Bale believes Starmer lacks Blair's charisma. But, he added, given the turmoil the British have endured since the Brexit referendum in 2016, a bit of boredom would not go down too badly, I think, with the public.

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Associated Press writer Danica Kirka contributed to this story.