New Delhi: Keir Starmer, a 61-year-old former lawyer, has dragged the United Kingdom’s Labour Party from an 85-year electoral low in 2019 to a landslide victory in 2024, winning 412 seats after four years of rebuilding the party. King Charles III has now formally appointed him prime minister.
The mild-mannered leader has been a study in plainness compared to the parade of colourful Conservative leaders he has sparred with in the past four years, including the scandal-ridden Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, whose term ended before the “lettuce had wilted”, as declared by the Daily Star, and who is remembered for competing against the man richer than the king, Rishi Sunak.
Since Starmer took the reins of the Labour Party in 2020, the UK has witnessed the COVID-19 pandemic, a mini-financial crisis set off by Truss, nearly two years of inflation and a changing geopolitical situation, including a war in Europe (Russia-Ukraine), tensions in the Taiwan straits and the South China Sea.
As prime minister, he’ll have to manage a domestic economy that’s the one of the slowest-growing among the western countries in the G7, while simultaneously beset with the highest inflation. And abroad, Starmer will need to deal with Donald Trump if he becomes President of the United States, Britain’s closest ally.
As the results were coming in, Starmer declared, “We did it. You campaigned for it, you fought for it, you voted for it and now it has arrived. Change begins now. It feels good, I have to be honest. Four-and-a-half years of work changing the party, this is what it is for — a changed Labour Party.”
His path to 10 Downing Street, however, looked unlikely in 2020, when the Johnson-led Conservatives had won 365 seats in the House of Commons, and Labour just 202.
Also read: Keir Starmer, 400 paar — Labour storms to victory in UK, Tories break records in defeat
Starmer’s policy for India
For India, Starmer’s leadership of the Labour Party has seen a dramatic shift in its policy with regards to Jammu and Kashmir, especially compared to the policy during the leadership of his predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn.
The Corbyn-led Labour Party took an aggressive stance on the abrogation of Article 370 in August 2019.
“The Labour Party believes that India and Pakistan must work together with support of the international community to determine a lasting and peaceful political solution, which protects the human rights of the Kashmiri people and respects their democratic rights to have a say in their own future,” Liz McInnes, the then shadow foreign secretary, said in a statement.
In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Corbyn himself termed the situation in Jammu and Kashmir “deeply disturbing” and called for the United Nations resolutions to be implemented.
The situation in Kashmir is deeply disturbing. Human rights abuses taking place are unacceptable. The rights of the Kashmiri people must be respected and UN resolutions implemented.
— Jeremy Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn) August 11, 2019
In its 2024 manifesto, the Labour Party, under Starmer, has promised to “seek a new strategic partnership” with India, including the completion of the Free Trade Agreement (FTA), and deepening ties in sectors such as security, education, technology and climate change.
Who is Keir Starmer?
Starmer, knighted for his services to criminal justice, first became a member of Parliament in 2015. He was born in a town in Surrey, just outside of London to a woman who worked with the National Health Service (NHS) and a father who was a toolmaker.
According to media reports, his mother suffered from Still’s disease — a form of inflammatory arthritis — all her life, and died weeks after he first became a parliamentarian in 2015. His father died about three years later.
He was the first member his family to attend university and went on to become a practising lawyer before being appointed the head of the Crown Prosecution Service, as the Director of Public Prosecutions in England and Wales in 2008. He remained in his post till 2013 and was knighted in 2014.
He will be the first knight to be prime minister of the UK since Sir Alec Douglas-Home (later Lord Home) in the 1960s.
Starmer became the leader of the Labour Party after Corbyn resigned following the disastrous 2019 general election results. He has worked to bring the party back to the political Centre.
What are his major promises for UK?
Starmer’s major promises for the UK include a six-step plan for “change” – deliver economic stability, cut waiting times for the National Health Service (NHS), launch a new Border Security Command, become a green energy superpower, recruit 6,500 new teachers, and crack down on anti-social behaviour.
With regard to the European Union (EU), the regional organisation of which the UK was a member of till 2020, he has promised that the country would remain outside it. “We must make Brexit work,” is what the Labour manifesto said.
“We will reset the relationship and seek to deepen ties with our European friends, neighbours and allies. That does not mean reopening the divisions of the past. There will be no return to the single market, the customs union, or freedom of movement,” the party has promised.
The Labour Party has promised to work on a new UK-EU security pact and other bilateral agreements to remove any barriers to trade.
Starmer also promised to continue supporting Ukraine in the war against Russia and working with British allies to seize and use frozen Russian assets to support Kyiv.
(Edited by Radifah Kabir)