Exclusive: Keir Starmer Says He Will End Tory Culture Wars If He Becomes Prime Minister

Keir Starmer has pledged to end the Tory culture wars if he becomes prime minister.

In an exclusive interview, the Labour leader told HuffPost UK that people are “exhausted” by the political battles over issues such as trans rights.

And he said he wanted to focus on “bringing people together” rather than creating further division.

Rishi Sunak has been accused of stoking social division by making Esther McVey his so-called “minister for woke” in a reshuffle last year.

Equalities minister Kemi Badenoch also announced last week that if they win the election, the Tories will amend the Equality Act to ensure that “sex in the law means biological sex and not new, redefined meanings of the word”.

Starmer has been criticised in the past for shifting his own position on transgender rights. 

However, the Labour leader said his government would look to bring an end to those controversies on day one.

He said: “I think people are exhausted by culture wars. My clear view is that the vast majority of the public in general in the UK are reasonable, tolerant people.

“Live and let live is a very British thing, and what culture wars do is force people into taking sides that they’re not instinctively inclined to do. And it’s exhausting because you’re constantly having a battle about this and a battle about that.

“That’s why I’ve said that politics needs to tread more lightly on people’s lives.”

Starmer added: “The Tories have got nowhere else to go but this divisive culture war area, and I do think that if we do win the election I do want it to be a reset moment for politics in a number of different ways.

“The most important thing to me personally is to restore politics to service, a sense that this we are here to serve the country, but also this sense of bringing people together.”