Keir Starmer was beaten up as teenager trying to defend gay friend, book reveals

Book by Tom Baldwin also describes Labour leader’s ‘cold fury’ over homophobic attack on his niece in 2022

Keir Starmer was beaten up in a nightclub in Cornwall as a teenager after trying to defend one of his friends who was attacked for being gay, a new book reveals.

In an incident that the book’s author, Tom Baldwin, suggests demonstrates Starmer’s values, the Labour leader describes how he was disgusted that his friend had been kicked out of the family home in the 1980s for being gay by his father who told him “you’re no son of mine”.