Sir Keir Starmer admitted to having republican views towards the Royal Family in an unearthed video from his past. The footage shows a younger Sir Keir being interviewed in 2005 following what was known as ‘the McLibel case’. However this contradicts what the now Labour Party leader claimed during a Channel 4 leadership debate last year.
In the clip, he speaks to the person filming him about being appointed to the Queen’s Counsel.
Sir Keir says: “I got made a Queen’s Counsel, which is odd since I often used to propose the abolition of the monarchy.”
Queen’s Counsel, more commonly known as QC, are senior lawyers in various Commonwealth countries.
They are essentially a very senior barrister.
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Sir Keir was appointed Queen’s Counsel in April 2002 at the age of 39.
The Opposition leader has not expressed such support for abolition in public before.
During the 2020 Channel 4 debate for the Labour leadership election, candidates were asked if they would vote to scrap the institution.
The former Shadow Brexit Secretary said: “No, I wouldn’t. I think I’d downsize it.”
According to a poll conducted by YouGov in February 2020, one in five Britons would abolish the monarchy.
The survey of more than 3000 people found that 62 percent of British adults think the country should still have a monarchy.
This is compared to 22 percent for no and 16 percent that did not know.
Support for individual royals is even higher.
The Queen, Prince William and Kate, Duchess of Cambridge, have the highest popularity ratings on the YouGov favourability tracker.
