Keir Starmer, the human rights lawyer who was elected British Prime Minister in a landslide victory in July 2024, has pledged to move beyond the long-awaited free trade agreement with India.
Just days before announcing his resignation on the doorstep of 10 Downing Street in London on Monday morning, he met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines of the G7 summit in France, where the two leaders set July 15 as the date for the free trade agreement to enter into force.
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Now, at around the same time as the India-UK Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement – which is expected to significantly boost the £48 billion bilateral trade relationship – is being implemented, the UK is expected to have a new leader in his place.
“It is not just a piece of paper, it is a launching pad for growth,” Starmer said during his visit to Mumbai last October. “With India expected to become the world’s third largest economy by 2028, and trade with it set to become faster and cheaper, the opportunities waiting to be seized are unparalleled.”
The 63-year-old MP for Holborn and St Pancras in London is credited with pulling off an impressive reversal in Labour’s fortunes following the party’s crushing election defeat in December 2019.
Another shift he worked hard to rebuild was his party’s connection with British Indians, who had felt discontent under former leader Jeremy Corbyn due to the anti-Indian stance on Kashmir.
As Prime Minister, his approach to India was reflected in Labour’s 2024 election manifesto, in which he committed to seeking “a new strategic partnership with India, including a free trade agreement, as well as deepening cooperation in areas such as security, education, technology and climate change”.
“I have a clear message for you all today: this is a changed Labor Party,” he declared just before the general election.
During a visit to the Shri Swaminarayan Temple in Kingsbury, north London, during the election campaign, he sought to reassure British Hindus that “there is absolutely no place for Hinduphobia in Britain”. It’s a message he has been repeating over the past few years, including during Diwali celebrations at 10 Downing Street.
Sir Keir, who was knighted by the late Queen Elizabeth II for services to law and criminal justice, spent most of his career in the legal profession before entering politics, and was first elected as a Labor MP from London in 2015.
The father of two teenage children has been kept out of the political spotlight by him and his NHS employee wife, Victoria.
Starmer was born in London to a tool maker father and an NHS nurse mother, and grew up in the Surrey town of Oxted. He spoke emotionally about his mother, Josephine, who suffers from the debilitating condition Still’s disease, which she succumbed to just weeks before he took office as MP in 2015.
He believes he has inherited the grit and determination of his mother and the strong work ethic of his father, Rodney, whose manual labor drove much of Starmer’s vision to ensure respect for those who work hard.
In televised general election debates, Starmer often played second fiddle to Rishi Sunak, his Tory predecessor, and was often described as extremely boring.
But just like Sunak, he too has a background from Oxford University, where he studied law and rose through the ranks to be appointed Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) under a Labour-led government.
He has drawn on this experience as the country’s attorney-general in debates in the House of Commons and comes face to face with sharp quips during weekly Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs).
As a new MP in 2016, the staunchly anti-Brexiter took on the key role of shadow minister under leader Jeremy Corbyn and backed the latter to fight for what he says is “Labour’s future”.
After the 2019 general election debacle, he stepped in as party leader and sought to distance himself from the previous party line to ensure that under his leadership Labor now had a full-fledged manifesto focused on the key public concerns of building homes, growing the economy and reforming the NHS.
After an initial phase of success and setting the country’s economic path towards some stability, some of his misjudgments and political shifts ultimately cost him the top position in the British government.
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They say a week in politics is a long time, and until last week, Starmer had been resolute that he planned to take on any leadership challenge thrown his way.
A visibly emotional Starmer declared in his resignation speech: “The question my party now asks is whether I am best placed to lead us to the next general election. I have heard my parliamentary party’s answer to that question, and I accept that answer with good grace.”
