Quotes from Keir Starmer

I am not a pacifist and I would back a lawful, coherent and compelling case for the use of military force by the U.K. against Isis.

Britain needs a good Brexit deal to safeguard jobs, security and trade and to build a new partnership with the E.U. Achieving this will be fiendishly difficult.

I campaigned to stay in the E.U. I voted to stay in the E.U. and I was very disappointed by the outcome. And if there was another vote I would vote to remain in.

Access to our civil courts has been severely restricted by the combination of: the removal of legal aid from some cases based on their type, not their merit; a high financial threshold for the receipt of legal aid in other cases; and a failure to deliver a safety net for vulnerable individuals by the exceptional funding arrangements.

The framework for everything I've done has been human rights. That is about protecting the vulnerable and giving people access to courts where they wouldn't otherwise have access to courts.

I wouldn't characterise myself as a bleeding heart liberal, whatever that is.

Brexit can be stopped.

We cannot allow Brexit to be driven by narrow and divisive Tory ideology.

Surveillance legislation fit for the 21st century, which strikes the right balance between privacy, security and democracy is a prize worth fighting for, and Labour will work constructively with the government to achieve it.

I think most people accept that it is necessary to have some surveillance in a democratic society. I think most people accept that it's important to have limits and clear safeguards on that.

Labour's approach is not about what is politically right, it is about what is right for the country.

The government must be open enough to provide robust impact assessments of leaving the single market or the customs union, including region-by-region and sector-by-sector analysis.

The final Brexit deal must ensure there is no diminution in Britain's national security or ability to tackle cross-border crime.

By remaining inside a customs union and the single market in a transitional phase we would be certain that goods and services could continue to flow between the E.U. and the U.K. without tariffs, customs checks or additional red tape.

No border controls anywhere in the world are able to prevent determined criminals from crossing borders.

Labour's priorities are clear: jobs and the economy must come first; not party interests or ideological fantasies.

To state that lethal force should not be used without a proper legal justification is to state the obvious.

The nature of the final Brexit deal really matters. It is, as I have said before, the battle of our times.

I would reject wholeheartedly any notion of a Labour Party that is not committed to returning to power at the first opportunity. Of course that needs to be principled power. But standing on the sidelines looking for the purest ideology is a dereliction of the duty for any Labour member.

In a democracy there will always be a tension between security and privacy.

We have to call out terrorism for what it is, and I have always done that, and the Labour Party has always done that.

When I was director of public prosecutions, from 2008 to 2013, I had a first-rate counter-terrorism team, who worked closely with the police and the security and intelligence services to defeat and disrupt terrorism.

From my experience both as DPP and previously as a human rights lawyer, I know that human rights and effective protection from terrorism are not incompatible. On the contrary, they go hand in hand.

I spent five years prosecuting some of the most dangerous terrorists in this country, so it would be quite difficult for people to pin the charge of being soft on terrorism on me.