Keir Starmer and the Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers: I can send some historical documents

Keir Starmer was Secretary of the Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers when I was Chair in the early 1990s. I don’t think he was ever a socialist, certainly not a Marxist, although I have a PDF of his 1987 article in “Socialist Alternatives” entitled “Wapping – beyond a defeat”. But then the Labour Party is not a socialist party. It is a trade union party.

Keir was a very good human rights lawyer, and acted pro bono for ten years for the defendants, Helen Steel and David Morris, in the McLibel case brought by McDonalds.

In 1992 he led a Haldane mission to Northern Ireland. I have the Report entitled “Upholding the rule of law? Northern Ireland: criminal justice under the “emergency powers” in the 1990s”, and can send it and the 1987 article to anyone who emails me. b.bowring@bbk.ac.uk.

He became DPP through his work in the peace process in Northern Ireland. In 2007 before he became DPP he led me in Carter v Russia, the poisoning of Alexandr Litvinenko by the Russian state, brought by his widow Marina. The case is still proceeding at Strasbourg, and I am still representing Marina (now with Ben Emerson QC).

Keir was always intensely ambitious.