Keir Starmer Quotes Margaret Thatcher And Says She Was 'Right' In Speech On Crime

Keir Starmer quoted Margaret Thatcher and said she was “right” during a speech on crime.

The Labour leader channelled the former Tory prime minister by insisting that upholding the rule of law was the first duty of government. 

Starmer said it was his mission to make Britain’s streets safer and stop criminals “getting away with it” at a speech at Port Vale Football Club.

He told the audience in Stoke-on-Trent: “The rule of law is the foundation for everything.

“Margaret Thatcher called it the ‘first duty of government’ – and she was right.

“An expression of individual liberty - our rights and responsibilities, but also of justice, of fairness, of equality - one rule for all.”

Starmer said the next Labour government’s mission was to halve serious violent crime and raise confidence in the police and the justice system.

It is part of Labour’s latest drive to show they will be tough on crime if they win the next general election. 

Starmer said the country’s policing by consent model was now “hanging by a thread” following the publication of a damning report into the Metropolitan Police.

The report was carried out by Baroness Louise Casey after the murder of Sarah Everard at the hands of a then-working Met Police officer.

In what she described as a “rigorous, stark and unsparing” report, Casey and her team found that the entire force is institutionally racist, misogynistic and homophobic.

Starmer added: “I know there are good officers in the Met, as of course there are across the whole country. But the actions of that force, collectively and individually have tarnished the reputation of policing everywhere.”