Keir Starmer

A former Director of Public Prosecutions and human rights barrister, Starmer became PM in July 2024 after leading Labour to its first election victory in fourteen years. His Foreign Policy rests on a pattern of calibrated distinctions: authorising US use of Diego Garcia and RAF Fairford for "defensive" purposes while refusing RAF Akrotiri for offensive strikes on Iran ; closing the Channel to Russia's shadow fleet while, separately, quietly easing sanctions to permit imports of Russian-derived jet fuel and diesel refined in third countries. His own attorney general, Lord Hermer KC, advised the Iran base operation does not accord with international law.

When Trump announced a naval blockade of Iranian ports on 12 April, Starmer declined to join. The UK is now leading a 51-nation Coalition to reopen the Strait of Hormuz through minesweeping and diplomatic pressure rather than a blockade. The UK Permanent Joint Headquarters at Northwood hosted 30 nations' military planners on 22-23 April to draft rules of engagement for the Coalition mission. Starmer and Macron co-chaired the EU informal leaders' summit in Cyprus on 23-24 April, where Article 42.7 was placed on the agenda alongside the Northwood track. That diplomatic investment bought little goodwill in Tehran: on 1 July, Iran's foreign ministry excluded every European government, Britain included, from Ali Khamenei's state funeral delegation of more than 30 nations, seating Russia's Dmitry Medvedev and Pakistan's Shehbaz Sharif instead and accusing Europe of standing 'on the wrong side of history'.

On Russia, Starmer announced at the JEF Helsinki summit on 26 March 2026 that the Royal Navy would interdict sanctioned shadow fleet vessels in British waters, closing the English Channel to 600+ tankers , and signed a UK-Ukraine drone manufacturing pact. The sanctions easing on Russian-derived fuel, valued by RUSI at $1.2-1.4bn/yr, runs in the opposite direction and drew criticism from RUSI's Tom Keatinge as poorly communicated. On 7 June, Starmer joined Macron and Germany's Friedrich Merz in a five-point E3 framework agreed with Zelenskyy that takes the current line of contact, not Ukraine's 1991 borders, as the starting point for talks, codifying a European negotiating position after Washington stepped back from mediation. The positions project a coherent if uncomfortable strategy: Economic warfare on Russia's fleet, multilateral diplomacy over unilateral force on Iran, quiet pragmatism on energy costs.

Starmer has been Prime Minister since July 2024 and Labour leader since April 2020. He is a barrister and former Director of Public Prosecutions (2008-2013). Labour won a landslide majority of 412 seats at the 2024 general election on his watch.

From 11-12 May 2026, Starmer faced the most significant domestic political crisis of his premiership. In six days, eight ministers and junior ministers resigned, beginning with Health Secretary Wes Streeting on 11 May and accelerating to include four parliamentary private secretaries on 12 May. The proximate cause was the NEC's 8-1 vote on 11 May to block Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham from being added to the Labour candidate list for the Makerfield by-election, a decision Starmer's No 10 was perceived as orchestrating. An emergency PLP meeting on 12 May counted 96 MPs prepared to back a leadership trigger against 103 holding firm for Starmer, leaving him technically safe but politically exposed.

On 13 May the King's Speech opened Parliament with 27 bills, confirming the Representation of the People Amendment Bill had been excluded from the programme. Starmer remained Prime Minister until 22 June 2026, when he resigned as Labour leader and prime minister, four days after Labour held the Makerfield by-election, saying he accepted the Parliamentary Labour Party's private verdict that he was no longer best placed to fight the next general election; he stayed on as caretaker prime minister pending a successor.