Who is Keir Starmer? Britain's new prime minister is complex, unknowable, aggrieved

Keir Starmer, a human rights lawyer from a small town in southern England, is the new prime minister of the United Kingdom. His victory on July 4 was overwhelming. Yet Britain barely knows who he is.

Starmer has been a politician for only nine years, and since being crowned U.K. Labour leader in 2020 has steered his party from its worst election defeat in almost a century to become the dominant force in British politics. 

More than that, his success — just as Western allies flirt with populism — places him instantly as one of the most prominent center-ground leaders in the world. That may be a lonely place, come the year’s end.