23-04-2025
Keir Starmer 'is a Unionist' insists official spokesman after PM ducks question
The Prime Minister refused to say whether he was a Unionist when asked by a Northern Irish MP during PMQs on Wednesday.
"Of course" Keir Starmer is a Unionist despite avoiding the question in the House of Commons, his official spokesperson has said.
The Prime Minister had refused to say whether he was a Unionist when asked by a Northern Irish MP during PMQs on Wednesday.
But his official spokesperson confirmed that Starmer wants Scotland and Northern Ireland to remain in the United Kingdom.
When asked after PMQs if Starmer is a unionist, his official spokesperson said: "I think the Prime Minister said before that, of course, he is the Prime Minister for the whole of the UK, including in Northern Ireland."
When pushed if he was a Scottish Unionist but not a Northern Irish Unionist, the spokesperson said: "The Prime Minister if of course Prime Minister for the entire United Kingdom.
"So of course he is a Unionist."
Starmer had been asked by Ulster Unionist Party MP Robin Swann to restate his commitment to unionism during Prime Minister's Questions.
Swann said: 'Could he speak to his Northern Ireland team about their understanding of the Belfast Good Friday Agreement, because the Secretary of State in an interview seemed to think that it had been negotiated by Ian Paisley rather than David Trimble and my party?
' His Northern Ireland minister has said at the start of this week that the future of Northern Ireland as part of the union is dependent on opinion polls, and she wasn't sure if she was a unionist.
"Can the Prime Minister confirm to me his understanding of the principle of consent, and confirm to this House that he is a unionist?'
But Starmer refused to say that he is a unionist.
He instead paid tribute to politicians who put together the Good Friday Agreement.
' I absolutely stand four square behind the principles, some of which I was doing my part to help implement when I was working in Northern Ireland, they will always drive me on the issues that he raises with me,' he said.
