- Keir Starmer is expected to become the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
- He got help sharing his personal story from an unlikely source: Barack Obama.
- Experts say President Barack Obama could advise Trump on how to deal with Starmer if he is re-elected president.
Brits are heading to the polls as the country prepares for a radical change in leadership.
Opinion polls are predicting a landslide victory for the left-wing Labour Party, whose leader, Keir Starmer, would become prime minister, bringing an end to 14 years of Conservative rule.
“Today, Britain can begin a new chapter,” Starmer said as voting began on Thursday, “a new era of hope and opportunity after 14 years of turmoil and decline.”
However, Starmer is often said to lack charisma.
Jill Rutter, a researcher at the London research group Britain in a Changing Europe, told The New York Times that Mr Trump is “certainly relatively prime ministerial”, but added that he is “not an exciting character”.
Starmer came to politics relatively late, first being elected to the UK Parliament in 2015, aged 52. Before that he was a lawyer and rose to become chief prosecutor for England and Wales, so although he was in the public eye he never had to ask people to vote for him.
As a candidate for senior office, Starmer had no choice but to talk about his background. Since becoming Labour leader in 2020, he has often played up his humble origins, talking about how his father worked as a toolmaker and his mother worked as a nurse, and how he raised his children in a small house they called the “Pebble Dash Semi”, next to another estate.
But despite his political assets being a stark contrast to the current chancellor, Rishi Sunak, Starmer has at times appeared uncomfortable with the public emotional displays necessary to tell his story.
Sunak, a former Goldman Sachs banker, is married to Akshata Murthy, the daughter of Indian billionaire Infosys founder N R Narayana Murthy. The Sunday Times reported in May that the couple has a net worth of 651 million pounds (about $830 million).
Over the past few months, Starmer has gone out of his way to highlight that contrast by making himself more approachable to voters.
He got help from an unlikely mentor: former US President Barack Obama.
Obama urged Starmer to show vulnerability
Mr Obama, who served as US president from 2009 to 2017, urged Mr Starmer to be more vulnerable and open with the public in a series of Zoom calls and told the Labour leader about the difficult decisions he had made in the Oval Office.
Politico reported that the pair were first introduced by David Lammy, one of Starmer’s key aides and who would become foreign secretary if Labour wins.
Lammy told Politico’s “Power Play” podcast in March that he has known Obama for 20 years, since meeting him at a Harvard University black alumni event.
According to the Telegraph, President Obama met Lammy over dinner when he dropped in to see Chancellor of the Exchequer Sunak in March.
Mr Lammy said Mr Obama’s influence on Mr Starmer was clear after the Labour leader recently opened up about his family’s past “much more comfortably than he had a few years ago”.
“And I know President Obama feels very strongly that Kiir should do that,” he added.
Mr Lammy’s comments came after Mr Starmer, in a lengthy interview with Sky News, described how his mother had Still’s disease, a rare form of inflammatory arthritis.
He said the father spent most of his time caring for his daughter, which had “squeezed” his “emotional space” and made him emotionally distant from his children.
“Perhaps I should have mentioned it before he died, and I wish I had, but I didn’t,” Starmer added.
British political journalist Kitty Donaldson told Business Insider that the interview marked a turning point in Starmer’s public emotional displays.
“Up until that point, Starmer had been a very stiff, very pragmatic, very stiff guy,” Donaldson said. She said Obama had “opened up” Starmer and “given him permission to open up.”
“It has had an impact in terms of his leadership style,” she said. “Obama is a lot more laid back. He’s been more laid back this campaign than he has been in the past and he seems to enjoy walking around the country and talking to people.”
Tom Packer, an honorary research fellow at University College London who specialises in US politics and elections, told BI that Starmer’s record had become a “theme of the campaign”.
He said the work helped challenge the notion that all British politicians came effortlessly “from the upper classes”.
Obama may advise Starmer on how to deal with Trump
The relationship between Obama and Starmer is likely to continue if Starmer wins Thursday’s election.
Mr Obama has backed Mr Starmer since at least 2021, and the Guardian reported he held two-hour private talks with Mr Lammy about how the centre-left party could return to power.
Speaking on Politico’s Power Play podcast in September, Starmer said Obama was the US president he had spoken to “most frequently”.
“I’ve spoken to him many times and it’s always interesting to think together about his analysis of the world, his challenges, how he faced the problems and challenges he faced,” Starmer said.
“It’s always useful to test your thinking on people who have won elections, who have been in positions of power and made difficult decisions, because it helps us think about how to go about some of the decisions that we have to make if we win the election,” he added.
Packer said Obama’s relationship with Starmer made sense given the decades-long relationship between Britain’s Labour Party and the US Democratic Party.
Meanwhile, Donaldson suggested Starmer could turn to former President Barack Obama for advice on how to deal with Donald Trump if he is re-elected in November.
Trump is leading in the polls, and Biden’s shaky performance in the first presidential debate on June 28 has sent Democrats into panic mode, calling for Biden to step aside and replace him with another candidate.
Starmer told Politico in September that his team was in discussions with Biden, adding: “I’m clear about what the outcome I want is.”
Packer told BI that Starmer and his team did not want to “put their eggs in one basket” and would be keen to ensure “some kind of working relationship with Trump” despite their political differences.
“Trump finds it hard to be mean to people who have been good to him,” Packer said.
He said that if Starmer was a “good person” a Labour government would be able to have a good relationship with Trump “even if we don’t agree on policy”.
He noted that Starmer had been careful to avoid anti-Trump rhetoric during the election campaign.
In an interview with BBC Radio 5 last week, Mr Starmer was asked whether he agreed with Mr Lammy’s 2018 description of Mr Trump as a “misogynist, neo-Nazi-sympathising sociopath” and a “serious threat to the international order”.
“I have never used those words,” Mr Starmer replied.
“I know that the job of those who lead our country is to negotiate with leaders of other countries who are elected by their people. We don’t always get to choose the leaders of other countries,” he continued.
Lamy has also softened his stance, saying at the May summit that Trump’s position on European defense was “misunderstood” and that he would like to see “Europeans do more to strengthen Europe’s defense,” according to Politico.
After Trump was found guilty of paying hush money to Stormy Daniels, Starmer described it as “unprecedented”.
But, he added, “We will work with whoever is elected… We have a special relationship with the United States no matter who the president is.”
