The Labor Party of the UK won the general election in the country on Thursday, which received the most votes in the lower house of parliament, which consists of 650 seats.
Sir Keir Starmer is to become the UK’s new prime minister, after leading the Labor Party to a landslide victory.
He replaced left-wing politician Jeremy Corbyn as Labor leader four years ago and worked to bring the party back to the centre, to make it electable.
Labor has been out of power for 14 years and now has 370 seats, making it a majority in parliament.
Life before politics
Sir Keir Starmer was born in London in 1962. He is one of four children in the family of Rodney Starmer and Josephine.
His father was a factory mechanic and his mother was a nurse.
He grew up in the county of Surrey in southeast England,
The family were Labor supporters.
His mother has been suffering from a health condition most of her life, especially Still’s disease, which later made her unable to walk and speak.
This man joined the politics of the Labor Party at the age of 16, and joined the youth wing of the party.
For a time, he also edited the radical left-wing magazine, Socialist Alternatives.
Sir Keir was the first person in his family to go to university. He studied law at Leeds and Oxford, then worked as a human rights lawyer.
During this time, he worked to abolish the death penalty in countries in the Caribbean and Africa.
In 2008, Sir Keir was made Director of Public Prosecutions and head of the Prosecution Service, meaning he was the chief prosecutor in England and Wales. He held the job in 2013.
In 2014, he received the ‘Sir’ award from the British Empire for outstanding performance and service to his country.
To be the leader of the Labor Party
In 2015, Sir Keir entered parliament as the MP for Holborn and St Pancras in London.
Labor was in opposition at the time, led by left-wing politician Jeremy Corbyn. He appointed Sir Keir as acting Home Secretary.
After the UK voted to leave the EU, Sir Keir was made shadow Brexit secretary in the run-up to a second referendum.
Sir Keir was given the chance to become Labor leader after the 2019 general election which was a disaster for the party and it was the worst defeat since 1935. This forced Jeremy Corbyn to resign.
When he took the leadership of the party, Labor campaigned for the nationalization of energy and water companies, and for university students to be educated for free.
Jeremy Corbyn has divided Labor between the left and the moderates.
Sir Keir said he wanted to unite the party, but he also wanted to keep Mr Corbyn.
He later suspended his friend, Jeremy Corbyn from the Labor Party in Parliament after a row of hatred which came to light when Mr Corbyn was leading the party.
Sir Keir’s position on these points
Despite his leadership campaign, Sir Keir steered the party towards the center to make it electable.
He abandoned many expensive policies, citing the poor state of the UK economy, while maintaining a few schemes.
Nationalization
Sir Keir has dropped his earlier proposal to nationalize the energy and water companies.
However, he promised to bring almost all passenger rail services back into public ownership within five years, under a new company called Great British Railways.
Education
Sir Keir has reneged on his previous pledge to scrap tuition fees for college students, saying the government will not be able to pay for it.
We are likely to exceed that commitment because we are in a different financial situation.”
The environment
The Labor Party has delayed a 2021 pledge to spend £28bn ($35bn) a year on green energy projects, but will stick to commitments such as building wind farms and developing a battery industry for electric cars.
This led to criticism from the Conservative Party that he was trying to “derail” an important policy decision.
Recently, Sir Keir pledged to invest £8bn in green energy through a new company called GB Energy.
He also promised to phase out fossil fuels in the UK by 2030. Many experts believe that this cannot be done.
Israel and Gaza
After the Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023, Sir Keir supported Israel’s operations in Gaza and its right to defend itself.
This angered many pro-Palestinian voters, and he faced a backlash from dozens of Labor MPs who called for an immediate ceasefire.
This man also supported the UK’s bombing of Houthis in Yemen, as a response to the group’s attacks on ships bound for Israel.
Europe
In 2019, Sir Keir pushed for a second referendum on whether Britain should leave the European Union.
Now he says there is no question of going back on Brexit, but he says he will discuss cooperation agreements with the EU on things like food, environmental standards and employment.
I hate losing’
Sir Keir Starmer, now the Prime Minister of the UK, has said many times in the past that he hates losing.
He once told the UK’s The Guardian newspaper: “I hate failure.”
When giving interviews, Sir Keir gives a little about his personality
Sir Keir married his wife, Victoria Alexander, in 2007. His wife works for the NHS. They are a family with two children.
The man who will become the Prime Minister of the UK, Sir Keir Starmer, is a supporter of the Arsenal football team.