Sir Keir Starmer: A Loss of Political Capital and the Inevitable End of a Hectic Political Journey
Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs), normally a series of bruising encounters between the sitting Prime Minister and the current Leader of the Opposition, turned instead into a convivial event on Wednesday 15 July 2026, on the occasion of Sir Keir Starmer’s final appearance as the nation’s leader for the weekly event in the House of Commons. After he had summed up his legacy and confirmed that he was leaving the country “in a better shape than I found it”, Starmer received a standing ovation from Labour MPs (joined by their Liberal Democrats counterparts), in a display of faux appreciation soon after they had plotted to unseat him and consign him to the backbenches. In pledging his “wholehearted support” to his successor, he ensured a smooth transition of government.
Sir Keir Starmer, as leader of the Labour Party, transformed an overwhelming defeat at the December 2019 general election, when the party was restricted to a mere 203 seats, into a landslide victory in July 2024, winning 411 seats and a 172-seat majority, albeit with just 32% of the vote. It cannot be said that he came totally unprepared for the task, having served in Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinet as Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union between 2016 and 2020, and then leading the opposition for four years, following his election as party leader in April 2020.
Starmer, unlike most of his predecessors, cannot be considered a career politician. He was a late entrant to politics, having served as a barrister from 1987 until 2008, and rising to become Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) from 2008 to 2013. It was only after the conclusion of his legal career that he was selected as a Labour parliamentary candidate for the safe seat of Holborn & St. Pancras in December 2014.
To better relate to the British public, Starmer made much of his working-class origins. Previous generations of the Starmer family included farm labourers, gamekeepers, and an agricultural wheelwright. Keir was born on 2 September 1962 and grew up in the commuter town of Oxted in Surrey. His father Rodney was a toolmaker and cycling enthusiast, while his mother Josephine, who was diagnosed with Still’s disease as a child, trained as a nurse but was severely disabled from her illness and died a few weeks before he was first elected to Parliament . Keir went to Reigate Grammar School in September 1974 after passing his 11-plus exam. After it became a fee-paying school, two years later, Keir’s school fees were covered by Surrey County Council. While at school, Starmer became proficient in playing the flute. He became the first member of his family to go to university, when he started at Leeds University in September 1982, where he received an LLB degree in 1985. Postgraduate study at St Edmund Hall in Oxford followed.
Keir Starmer was called to the Bar in 1987, and served as a legal officer with Liberty, an advocacy group for civil liberties and human rights, before became a founding member of Doughty Street Chambers in London in 1990. He made his name as a human rights lawyer and went on to take silk, becoming a QC in March 2002. As DPP, he headed the Crown Prosecution Service, where he revised the Code for Crown Prosecutors, set up a set of ‘Core Quality Standards’, instituted the Victims’ Right to Review scheme, expanded the International Division, and supported the transnational War on Drugs.
Starmer went about reorganising the Labour Party in a somewhat ruthless fashion, outmanoeuvring in-house opposition from the left-wing of the organisation and suppressing dissent in the process of making the party electable once again. Labour Together, originally launched in October 2015, worked behind the scenes to return the party to the centre-right. Parliamentary candidates were carefully vetted to ensure that they would toe the new party line. The Labour Party published an Action Plan for Driving out Antisemitism in December 2020, thereby addressing a source of electoral liability.
A landslide electoral victory for Labour, after 14 years of Conservative rule, did not, however, strengthen his hands to the extent one might have expected. To repeat a cliché, appropriate under the circumstances, Starmer managed to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory. Although considered a sharp intellect, with a forensic attention to detail, once in power he displayed considerable indecision and vacillated between various policy options, in a series of U-turns, which only served to dent his credibility. Even before he took up office, revelations of gifts from a major Labour Party donor were not received favourably by a public expecting a squeaky-clean leader for a change, one who was averse to unbecoming conduct. Removing the Winter Fuel Allowance for pensioners, whatever the underlying logic, proved to be mistimed and was met with widespread condemnation. Proposed cuts to disability benefits were abandoned in the face of backbench opposition. Political opponents criticised his decisions to abolish the two-child benefit cap and to expand free school meals to children in households on universal credit, which lifted half a million children out of poverty but added to welfare spending.
Although committed to economic growth, within the constraints of the Chancellor’s fiscal rules, taxes on employers had the opposite effect, proving especially detrimental to small- and medium-sized enterprises. Trump’s tariffs, and the wars in Ukraine and Iran did not help matters either. Despite the continuing arrivals of intending migrants by small boats, net migration through official routes fell, finally putting the brakes on the so-called ‘Boris Wave’ of mass immigration. Private renters benefited through the Renters’ Right Act, but the underlying shortage of affordable housing was largely unaddressed.
Keir Starmer seems to have made some impact on the international scene, mainly through his diplomatic efforts in relation to the ongoing conflicts in Iran and Ukraine, although attempts to curry favour with US President Donald Trump, who was granted an early State Visit, mostly backfired. Starmer’s reputation was dealt a major blow by his unstinting support for the appointment of Peter Mandelson, who served as Ambassador to the United States for 212 days before being removed from the post. His cautious approach to increasing defence spending led to the resignation of John Healey as Defence Secretary. Unfavourable public opinion polls were reflected in a devastating defeat for the Labour Party at the local council elections in May 2026, when the party lost control of 38 councils and 1,498 councillors were unseated, hastening Starmer’s political demise. Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester, was drafted in to deliver the coup de grâce, after winning a resounding victory in the June 2026 Makerfield parliamentary by-election.
Keir Starmer will go down in history as a decent and well-meaning person, with a bland persona, who proved somewhat unsuited for the rough and tumble of high office, appeared to lack a clear political vision, and was unable to sell his message convincingly to the public. Indeed, a question often asked was what Starmer really stood for. His downfall was ultimately down to the unhappy state of the economy under his leadership. Nonetheless, it would not be remiss at this juncture to wish Sir Keir Starmer, and his family, all the best for the future as he moves on to fresher pastures.
Ashis Banerjee