Nearly 20 years ago, Keir Starmer, a cynical young human rights lawyer, told a documentary filmmaker that it seemed “strange” to accept the title of Queen’s Counsel because “I had often suggested abolishing the monarchy”.
Starmer, now leader of the UK Labour Party, has long denied his anti-royalist rhetoric was the product of youth, and in 2014 he knelt before then-Prince Charles, who tapped him on the shoulder with his sword and bestowed him a knighthood.
If Sir Keir Starmer wins No. 10 Downing Street in next week’s general election, as opinion polls suggest, he may find himself more politically aligned with Prince Charles than the two previous Conservative chancellors, Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss, whose terms overlapped with the reign of the monarch.
On issues such as climate change, housing, immigration and Britain’s relationship with the European Union, experts say Starmer is likely to find common ground with the monarch, who has long-standing and often passionate views on these issues but is constitutionally barred from politics.
“A Labour government under Keir Starmer would place a stronger emphasis on people’s plight as a social issue,” said royal historian Ed Owens. “These are issues that have long interested the monarch. There is agreement that these are social issues.”
If elected prime minister, Starmer would meet weekly with Prince Charles – their discussions would remain confidential – but those in Buckingham Palace and Downing Street say they can foresee a fruitful relationship between the 75-year-old queen and the 61-year-old lawyer who was knighted for his services to criminal justice as director of public prosecutions.
Beyond Starmer’s progressive politics, scholars have noted that Prince Charles would appreciate the stability that a Labour government might restore after the Brexit divide, political upheaval and leadership changes — after all, he may become just the third prime minister less than two years into his second year on the throne.
“The monarchy aims to be a unifying force that holds the nation together, and it values ​​consensus rather than division,” said Vernon Bogdanor, a professor of constitutional monarchy at King’s College London. “That’s how the king sees his role.”
But Prof Bogdanor added: “His mother represents the war generation, whereas the king represents more the 1960s generation.”
As monarch, Charles does not have a vote, but during his decades as heir to the throne he has been outspoken on issues he cares about, such as organic farming and architecture, and has occasionally let his opinions slip on politically sensitive issues.
In 2022, Prince Charles reportedly criticized the Conservative government’s plans to put some asylum seekers on one-way flights to Rwanda as “terrible.” His comments, made in a private meeting, were published in the Times of London and the Daily Mail just weeks before he was to represent Queen Elizabeth at a meeting of Commonwealth countries in the Rwandan capital, Kigali.
Clarence House, where Prince Charles held his office at the time, declined to comment on the reports but did not deny them.
This prompted then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who proposed the Rwanda plan, to complain to Prince Charles, according to Guto Hari, Johnson’s communications director at the time. Hari wrote in the Mail that Johnson “confronted the Prince and questioned him about his comments as an unelected royal about the actions of a democratically elected government.”
Prince Charles has not said anything about Rwanda since. After Parliament passed the revised bill under Mr Sunak in April, the Royal Assent became law, but Mr Starmer has vowed that the Labour government will scrap the plan, calling it too expensive and unworkable.
Climate policy is another area where a Labour government might be more in line with the king’s thinking. Ms Truss asked Prince Charles not to attend the UN climate change conference in Egypt in 2022, depriving the king of a platform to speak out on an issue arguably dear to his heart. Mr Sunak later backed away from some of the UK’s emissions reduction targets, citing burdensome conditions amid the cost of living crisis.
Labour, by contrast, announced a green investment plan worth 28 billion pounds ($35 billion) a year, but then put its spending target on hold until Britain’s finances improve.
“Certainly the new Labour government and Charles seem aligned on these issues,” said Owens, the historian. “But Labour has a lot of nice words about the importance of the environment. Can they put those nice words into action?”
Starmer’s loyalty to the law may also prevent the monarch from finding himself in the same predicament his mother faced in 2019, when Johnson asked his mother to suspend, or prorogue, Parliament as lawmakers sought to delay Britain’s planned withdrawal from the EU.
The queen agreed, but the UK Supreme Court later ruled the decision unlawful. Critics accused Johnson of putting the monarch in a difficult position, as she cannot go against an elected government. Ms Truss raised similar governance questions when she proposed big unfunded tax cuts in 2022, which sparked a financial market backlash and cost her her position as prime minister.
“These prime ministers have been able to ignore the rules,” Owens said. “Generally speaking, the royal family doesn’t like undue attention being drawn to the constitution.”
It may seem counterintuitive, but historians say the Queen had closer relationships with Labour prime ministers than she did with Conservative ones: She was seen as particularly close to the pragmatic Yorkshireman Harold Wilson, but her interactions with Conservative icon Margaret Thatcher were said to be awkward at times.
To be sure, there were anti-monarchy leanings in the early Labour party: its first leader, Keir Hardie (who shares Starmer’s first name), once wrote: “Tyranny and monarchy are compatible, but democracy and monarchy are an unthinkable combination.”
Conservative political activists have dug up videos of a young Starmer to use in ads suggesting Labour hates the monarchy, but Labour was steadily evolving into a constitutional party even before Starmer became leader, and analysts say Starmer’s purge of the party’s far-left wing after taking over in 2020 likely wiped out any remaining anti-royal sentiment.
The 2022 Labour Party conference will see the national anthem played for the first time since the Queen’s death, with Starmer, who has previously called for the abolition of the monarchy, raising his voice to sing “God Save the King”.
