What does Keir Starmer really stand for? Will our new prime minister grow to be a socialist (as Tories declare), an authoritarian (because the left fears) or a closet liberal? His authorized background could maintain some clues.
After college he utilized to hitch my chambers, 1 Dr Johnson’s Buildings, which was on the forefront of the civil liberties battles of the day. In some ways it was not an apparent alternative for an aspiring Labour MP, headed by the Welsh Liberal QC MP Emlyn Hooson, who had defended the Moors murderers, and had amongst its members John “Rumpole” Mortimer, the liberal Tory Joe Walker-Smith, and myself, by then a veteran of anti-censorship instances similar to Mary Whitehouse’s campaign in opposition to Homosexual Information, and writer of the cumbersomely titled textbook, Freedom, the Particular person and the Legislation.
Keir interviewed badly, missing each confidence and gown sense. (“How can we take a man who wears a cardigan?” expostulated certainly one of my colleagues). However I wanted a junior, and so we took Keir on. We glance again at this for instance of why picks shouldn’t be made solely on the idea of interviews.
I took him to Strasbourg for his first case within the European courtroom. He forgot to carry his passport, and the gendarmes had been about to place him on the subsequent aircraft dwelling till, with the assistance of the British consul, he was freed in time for his human rights debut. It was in opposition to Denmark, which had by no means misplaced a case earlier than and was so assured of its success that it provided a free journey for its regulation college students to listen to it win once more. The case was introduced in opposition to its authorized system, which allowed judges to refuse bail after which to go on, as trial judges, to convict the defendant. However, because the courtroom dominated, they lacked impartiality and the nation needed to change its legal guidelines. It was Keir that day who gave a seminar to its regulation college students and who would go on to jot down a textbook on European human rights regulation. A Starmer authorities is not going to repeal the Human Rights Act.
In 1990, Keir joined me in founding Doughty Road Chambers. He was by no means just like the acquainted English “QC MP” – all crimson face and rhetoric common for tub-thumping in entrance of Previous Bailey juries. His type was developed in appellate and administrative regulation courts, often in instances in opposition to the federal government, the place he would write erudite however exact submissions and converse them softly however persuasively – typically bringing judges to conclusions that they might not have predicted after they first opened the case papers.
Keir had one expertise that the majority barristers lacked, particularly a capability to handle funds – and he joined me for a number of years as co-head of a chambers that aimed to do half its work at industrial charges and the opposite half on authorized assist (which, after all, pays far much less) and in any other case freed from cost. His strategy in conferences can be low-key, inviting contributions from stakeholders (he was an excellent listener) after which discovering a compromise which will have suited few however which alienated none. An instance, when he was director of public prosecutions, was the vexed query of the regulation in opposition to euthanasia, which a pole-axed parliament left on his lap. After cautious consideration, he issued “guidelines” for prosecutors which mitigated a few of the cruelty of the frequent regulation.
Of their first TV debate Sunak attacked Starmer for defending terrorists, which after all he did, however pursuant to his responsibility as a barrister to abide by the “cab-rank rule” and tackle anybody who needed to rent him. The rule ensures that no defendant, nevertheless demonised by the media, might be left with out an advocate and Starmer, as a number one practitioner within the subject, had no alternative however to simply accept these briefs. Had he rejected this work for causes of its political unpalatability, he would have been thrown out of chambers.
He didn’t want the consolation of the cab-rank rule to hitch me as a junior in an vital case, when the privy council dominated that point on loss of life row was a type of torture that might require commutation of loss of life sentences in a number of Commonwealth international locations. He additionally joined me in arguing the case for Rusbridger and Toynbee v the Lawyer Normal, once we tried to strike down an previous regulation that made it treason to advocate republicanism. The regulation lords turned us down however did make it clear that, because of the Human Rights Act, Guardian journalists had no trigger to concern their collars can be felt by Scotland Yard’s treason squad.
However his subsequent stint as DPP noticed criticism: his over-heavy response and overcharging of younger individuals concerned within the 2011 riots prompted some concern from inside and outdoors his workplace. He arrange 24-hour courts, the place one teenager was infamously sentenced to 16 months in jail for stealing two scoops of ice-cream. He additionally refused to prosecute the British officers complicit within the appalling torture and rendition of Binyam Mohamed.
Since his election as chief, he’s proven no signal of the socialism he espoused in his management marketing campaign, and he made a pig’s ear of answering questions on wanting Jeremy Corbyn to change into prime minister within the 2017 and 2019 normal elections. Denying that he needed his chief to change into prime minister and criticising the manifesto he beforehand mentioned can be the “foundational document” for his personal management made him sound duplicitous.
Many have criticised an authoritarian streak that has come out in factional assaults on the left within the Labour get together which have been overzealous (some say Stalinist). And he has dismayed many by his preliminary reluctance to criticise Israel’s indiscriminate bombing of Gaza and the slicing off of water and meals for a determined inhabitants. He has not, nevertheless, criticised the ICC prosecutor for searching for an arrest warrant in opposition to Benjamin Netanyahu for these crimes.
Keir doesn’t have the charisma of Tony Blair or Boris Johnson – however he does have a few of the workaholism of Harold Wilson and the intense seriousness of Clement Attlee. His earlier profession presents a clue to some different qualities related to that nice liberal reformer, William Gladstone, which ought to fear the Tories – Gladstone, in any case, received workplace 4 occasions and held it for 12 years. However for now, Starmer is providing no nice reform, and unchecked energy can breed complacency. Maybe progressive MPs (Jeremy Corbyn, as an illustration) can put stress on in Labour for larger reform.
My hope is that Keir remembers the values he as soon as espoused when he advised me it was human rights ideas that drew him into politics as a result of he believes them “capable of contributing to the realisation of political change”. If he forgets, there might be no scarcity of barristers from Doughty Road to problem his authorities’s choices.
