BUSINESSDAY
Keir Starmer is set to become Britain’s new Prime Minister today after leading the Labour Party to a resounding general-election victory, ending 14 years of opposition.
Keir appealed to voters for a strong mandate to rejuvenate Britain’s economy and received overwhelming support.
Labour is projected to secure 412 seats, granting him a commanding majority of at least 170. This victory marks the largest majority since Tony Blair and surpasses those of Clement Attlee and Margaret Thatcher, two of the 20th century’s most transformative Prime Ministers.
Who is Keir Starmer?
But who is Keir Starmer? The man who took the Labour Party from the wilderness and back into government in less than five years.
In 1982, Starmer became the first in his family to get to the university and later studied at Oxford. He later became a human rights lawyer.
Keir Starmer once advocated for the abolition of the British monarchy, later knelt before Charles, then Prince of Wales, to receive a knighthood.
He is also rumored to have been the inspiration for a brooding heartthrob character in the Bridget Jones movies during the 1990s.
More recently, he publicly supported the Black Lives Matter movement by taking a knee.
At 61, Starmer is a social liberal and fiscal moderate, currently leading the United Kingdom’s Labour Party.
He has served as a Member of Parliament since 2015 and became the leader of the opposition, challenging Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
Starmer’s parents were “proper old-fashioned socialists” who likely named him after Keir Hardie, the 19th-century Scottish trade unionist who founded the Labour Party in 1900, according to Tom Baldwin, author of Keir Starmer: The Biography.
He was raised in an affluent, conservative suburb of London and attended public school. His mother, Josephine, worked as a nurse in Britain’s National Health Service (NHS).
Joining the Young Socialists, the youth wing of the Labour Party, at age 16, Starmer’s political journey began early.
In 2014, he was knighted for his contributions to criminal justice, earning the title Sir Keir.
