Who is Keir Starmer, the next British prime minister? : NPR

Labour leader Keir Starmer appears at the BBC for an interview with Laura Kunsberg in London on October 23, 2022. Holly Adams/Getty Images .

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LONDON The most likely candidate to become Britain's next prime minister is a human rights lawyer who called for the abolition of the British monarchy but was knighted years later after kneeling before Charles, then Prince of Wales.

He was also rumored to be the inspiration for the brooding Heartbroken character in the Bridget Jones movies in the 1990s. More recently, he took a knee in support of Black Lives Matter.

Keir Starmer, 61, is a socially liberal, fiscally moderate and the leader of Britain’s Labour Party, which polls predict will win a landslide victory in Thursday’s parliamentary election. He has been an MP since 2015 and is the main rival to opposition Prime Minister Rishi Sunak since 2020.

Starmer will become the first Labour leader to win a British general election since Tony Blair in 2005, nearly two decades after the party was in power. Over the past century, Labour has spent far more time in opposition than in government.

But after 14 years of Tory rule, those in a messy situation with Brexit, Boris Johnson and the economic instability of his successor Liz Trudeau Starmer are more likely to benefit from the ruling party's perceived mistakes.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak (R) and opposition Labour leader Keir Starmer take part in a BBC debate in Nottingham, England, on June 26. Phil Noble/Reuters .

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Starmer has pledged to restore government power if elected, nationalise some railways and public services, raise the minimum wage, tax private school fees, improve the public health system and provide free breakfast in public primary schools.

If he is elected, Britain will move in the opposite direction to Europe, where there are concerns about the rise of the far right, particularly in France.

His unusual name

According to his biographer, Starmer was teased as a child for his unusual name, 'Keir', which means 'dark and gloomy' in Gaelic and Irish.

His parents were staunch old-school socialists, and may have named him after the 19th-century Scottish trade unionist Keir Hardie, says Tom Baldwin, author of Keir Starmer: The Biography. (Starmer said in 2015 that his parents admired Hardie and voted Labour, but never confirmed who he was named after, and he has since died.)

He grew up in a blue-collar family in an upscale suburban area.

Another obstacle for the young Starmer was his social class. He grew up in a wealthy, conservative suburb of London, but his family was socialist and blue-collar, and he went to public school.

his father [Rodney Starmer] According to Baldwin, he was a toolmaker, but people probably didn't think he was skilled or intelligent because they thought he was just a factory worker. And he always hated people looking down on him.

Starmer's father was withdrawn and sometimes blunt. He didn't talk to people. He would go around town and swear at them, Baldwin says.

British environmental activists Helen Steele (second from right) and David Morris (right) discuss with their lawyer Keir Starmer (seated) as they wait for their case to begin at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, eastern France, September 7, 2004. Christian Lutz/AP .

. Christian Lutz/AP

The Labour candidate admitted he had a difficult relationship with his late father. “We didn’t talk. He never expressed pride in what I did. He certainly didn’t say, ‘I love you,’” Starmer said in a recent radio interview.

His mother, Josephine, was a nurse in the National Health Service (NHS). She herself suffered from chronic illness, and was in and out of hospital with Still’s disease, an autoinflammatory condition. Her health problems are something Starmer often recalls in his speeches, and it has instilled in him the importance of the NHS providing free, taxpayer-funded healthcare to all.

In a speech to Labour’s 2021 conference, Starmer said the NHS had been her livelihood and was now her lifeline.

Starmer followed his namesake path, joining the Labour Party's youth wing, the Young Socialists, at the age of 16. As he grew up, he became a human rights lawyer, taking on oil companies and McDonald's.

Starmer may have inspired the character in the Bridget Jones books and movies.

For years, unverified rumours have circulated that Starmer inspired the character of Mark Darcy, the brooding lawyer who is the love interest of the protagonist in the Bridget Jones books and films. It’s plausible. Darcy (played onscreen by Colin Firth) and Starmer are both human rights lawyers. Starmer, like series creator Helen Fielding, has lived in Oxford and Leeds. Starmer’s massive McDonald’s lawsuit made headlines in the late 1990s, when Fielding was writing the first Bridget Jones novel.

In a 2020 BBC podcast, Fielding was happy to keep her mouth shut and let people wonder: “I’ve had a lot of boyfriends, and they’ve all been really great,” she said. But she later told another interviewer that she had never met Starmer.

Starmer said he would be delighted if that were true.

From human rights lawyer to criminal investigator

He worked as a human rights lawyer for about 20 years and was a police adviser to Northern Ireland after the Good Friday Peace Agreement in 1998. But then he switched sides and became a prosecutor. For five years he was the Director of Public Prosecutions for England and Wales.

The shift from defending accused criminals to prosecuting them has angered some of Starmer's left-wing civil rights colleagues, his biographer says.

He set himself up as a kind of self-conscious radical who rebelled against the state. But he slowly changed, Baldwin says, and moved to places where he could exert more influence. He adopted a more authoritarian approach to crime.

Keir Starmer, then the Director of Public Prosecutions, arrives at a radio studio in London on February 25, 2010. Oli Scarf/Getty Images .

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After the 2011 London riots, Starmer changed the rules to ensure speedy prosecutions, arguing that speedy trials for criminals were a better deterrent to crime than long prison sentences.

In 2014, Starmer was knighted for services to criminal justice, becoming Lord Keir. At the ceremony, Starmer was captured on camera calling for the abolition of the British monarchy and kneeling before the then Prince of Wales, Charles, who tapped him on both shoulders with his sword.

A year later, Starmer won a seat in the British Parliament, representing the Holborn and St Pancras constituency in north London.

In 2015, Starmer entered parliament. In 2020, he became Labour leader.

Labour MPs recall Starmer's first day in office, Shedd hears about his human rights and criminal justice achievements and his knighthood.

“I actually stabbed him in the back and said, you're that Keir Starmer. He said, yes, you are. And I said, I'm going to make you Labour leader,” recalled Caroline Harris, the Welsh MP. “He smiled and laughed and he said, well, let's have a cup of tea and talk about it.

Harris said she found Starmer to be a pragmatist willing to do whatever it takes to get elected nationally, namely moving the party to the centre, following the left-wing leadership of Jeremy Corbyn, who is often compared to Bernie Sanders.

Keir Starmer and his wife Victoria receive applause from delegates after delivering the keynote speech as party leader at the Labour Party conference in Brighton, England, September 29, 2021. Dan Kitwood/Getty Images .

. Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

Five years later, Starmer was chosen by his Labour colleagues to succeed Corbyn, one of his mentors, as leader. But he quickly expelled Corbyn from the party amid allegations of anti-Semitism. Corbyn remained in parliament as an independent.

This spring, when climate activists booed Starmer’s speech, he made an off-the-cuff remark outlining his thoughts on a post-Corbyn Labour Party.

We gave up being a protest party five years ago! He told the crowd. We want to be a party in power.

Some people call Starmer boring and dull.

Labour has pledged to improve relations with Europe, tax private school fees, ban the sale of petrol and diesel cars by 2030 and restore government power if elected.

But Starmer's lead in the polls may not be due to his party's platform or his charisma. Some British headlines have called him boring. Recent polls show that more people disapprove of his party's leadership than support it.

Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee says Labour's victory shows voters are more disgusted with the ruling Conservative Party. Boredom after Boris looks pretty good [Johnson] And Liz Truss! I think a lot of people want someone who is cool and smart and can handle things.

Labour leader Keir Starmer and North East Derbyshire candidate Louise Jones hold a Q&A with workers at a global brand retailer in Chesterfield, England, on Tuesday. Christopher Furlong/Getty Images .

. Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

Starmer’s secret is managing expectations. He inherited a country reeling from years of Tory-backed austerity measures, and government coffers are nearly empty.

Keir Starmer faces a very serious dilemma. Expectations are high for big change, but his policy list is modest and cautious, says David Willetts, a Conservative MP who holds a seat in the House of Lords.

“Expectations are way beyond what he can actually do,” he said.

NPR producer Fatima Al-Qassab contributed to this story from London.

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