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Keir Starmer

On this date in 1962, Keir Rodney Starmer, the first openly atheist British prime minister in history, was born in London to working-class parents, Josephine (Baker) a nurse, and Rodney Starmer, a toolmaker for injecting plastics.

Starmer was politically active as a youth growing up in a small town in Surrey and joined the Labour Party Young Socialists at age 16. He earned undergraduate and graduate law degrees from the University of Leeds and the University of Oxford in 1985-86. His graduation ceremony was “the only time my dad had put a suit on,” he told British Vogue. (July 5, 2024)

After appointment to the bar as a barrister in 1987, he had several high-profile cases, including as part of the defense team for two environmental activists being sued for libel by the McDonald’s Corp. The case dragged on for over 10 years. Starmer advised them pro bono and did the same for numerous death row prisoners in Africa and the Caribbean. He won several awards, including human rights lawyer of the year from one legal advocacy group.

In 2008 he was named to head the Crown Prosecution Service, the main public agency for conducting criminal prosecutions in England and Wales, and instituted reforms to bring a focus on human rights into the system. He served until 2013 and was elected to the House of Commons as a Member of Parliament (MP) in 2015 as a Labour candidate after achieving knighthood in 2014.

Starmer voted against leaving the European Union in 2016. He was reelected in 2017 and 2019 and was elected in 2020 to lead the Labour Party, succeeding Jeremy Corbyn. He led Labour four years later in July 2024 to a landslide victory ending 14 years of Tory governments and became prime minister. His full title became the Right Honourable Sir Keir Rodney Starmer.

He had declined a religious oath of office when he was sworn into Parliament, instead making a “solemn affirmation” to “truly declare and affirm that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to His Majesty King Charles, his heirs and successors according to law.” Compare that to senior MP Liz Truss, who held a bible and said, “I swear by Almighty God that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to His Majesty King Charles, his heirs and successors, according to law, so help me God.” (The Telegraph, Sept. 10, 2022)

He married Victoria Alexander, a legal solicitor a decade younger than him, in 2007. Her mother converted to Judaism to marry her father, an observant Jew. The Starmers have a son born in 2008 and a daughter born in 2010. They are being raised in their mother’s Jewish heritage, their father said: “My wife in particular wants our children to know the faith of her family.” (The Jewish Chronicle, Nov. 16, 2020)

PHOTO: Starmer’s official portrait as prime minister in 2024; photo by Simon Dawson under Open Government Licence v3.0.

Freedom From Religion Foundation