British voters head to the polls in the country’s first parliamentary election since 2019, when Boris Johnson and his Conservative Party won by a landslide. Since then, Conservative members voted in Liz Truss, who resigned after just 44 days in office before party lawmakers replaced her with Rishi Sunak, the current prime minister.
Keir Starmer, the leader of the Labour Party and Britain’s former government prosecutor, is Sunak’s main rival in the race for Britain’s top job. Starmer has centralized his party to appeal to middle-ground voters after his predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn, pushed it to the left.
Sunak surprised the country six weeks ago when he called for snap elections for the U.K., one of the U.S.’ most important allies and the world’s sixth-largest economy.
Subplots in this election include Brexit advocate and Donald Trump ally, Nigel Farage, trying to bloody the nose of the Conservatives from the right wing, Scottish voters deciding whether to once again hand a beleaguered Scottish National Party most of its seats in Parliament and the centrist Liberal Democrats trying to make up ground ceded in recent years.
Media outlets in the U.K. are under a strict reporting blackout while voting takes place, with our London bureau among those observing the rules. But until the polls close, the pupperazi is clearly out in full force, delivering election content online.
If Starmer wins, he would be the first member of Parliament with the title “Sir” to be elected British prime minister since the 1950s.
He received this chivalric royal honor in 2014 in recognition for his work as a human rights lawyer and head of Britain’s government prosecutor’s office. Though Queen Elizabeth II was on the throne at the time, Starmer received his knighthood from then-Prince Charles, who tapped the kneeling lawyer on each shoulder with the flat edge of a sword.
Starmer’s full title is Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath, which was first given by King George I in 1725 and, according to the royal family, dates to Medieval times when knights were actual soldiers toting swords and armor. It’s a lofty honorific for Starmer, a man with the most blue-collar upbringing of any candidate in a generation.
Plenty of prime ministers have been knighted since leaving office, but Starmer would be the first MP and leader to already have the title since Anthony Eden, who was knighted in 1954 and became prime minister a year later.
(NBC)
