Sir Keir Rodney Starmer (born 2 September 1962) is a British politician and former lawyer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2024 to 2026. He served as Leader of the Labour Party from 2020 to 2026 and as 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 with a Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of Leeds in 1985 and received a postgraduate Bachelor of Civil Law degree from St Edmund Hall, Oxford, in 1986. 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 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 succeeded him by winning the 2020 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 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—as outlined in his government's migration white paper—and launched the Border Security Command to replace the Rwanda asylum plan. His government also established Great British Energy, decriminalised abortion 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 qualified support for Israel in Gaza despite formally recognising the State of Palestine. His government negotiated free trade agreements with India, the European Union and the United States, and focused on improving relations with China.
Starmer's net approval rating began slightly positive but fell throughout his premiership, to an average of −46% by November 2025. an Ipsos poll that month indicated he was the least popular prime minister since its records began in 1977. Starmer also presided over deepening unpopularity towards Labour and a period of left-wing exodus from the party to the Green Party. Labour saw record electoral losses during the 2025 and 2026 local elections which culminated in a leadership crisis and his resignation. Starmer tendered his resignation to King Charles III 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".