Who is Keir Starmer, the likely next Prime Minister of UK who once demanded abolition of British monarchy?

The centre-left Labour Party was on track to secure a significant majority in the 650-seat UK parliament, while Rishi Sunak's Conservatives faced their worst performance in the party's history. As the opposition leader, Keir Starmer is likely to be Britain's next prime minister on Friday with his Labour Party set to win a massive majority in a parliamentary election, as exit polls predicted, forecasting Rishi Sunak's Conservatives would suffer historic losses.

Centre-left Labour was on course to capture 410 of the 650 seats in parliament, an astonishing reversal of fortunes from five years ago when it suffered its worst performance since 1935.

The result would give Labour a majority of 170 and would bring the curtain down on 14 years of increasingly tumultuous Conservative-led government.

"Tonight, people here and around the country have spoken and they're ready for change, to end the politics of performance, a return to politics as public service," Starmer said after winning his seat in London.

Who is Keir Starmer?

Lawyer-turned politician, the Labour leader Keir Starmer is a former human rights advocate turned state prosecutor whose ruthless ambition and formidable work ethic look set to propel him to Britain's highest political office. He once called for the British monarchy to be abolished, but years later knelt before Charles, then prince of Wales, to be knighted.

The 61-year-old, named after Labour's founding father Keir Hardie, is the centre-left opposition party's most working-class leader in decades.

"My dad was a toolmaker, my mum was a nurse," Starmer often tells voters, countering depictions by opponents that he is the epitome of a smug, liberal London elite.

Known for his grey quiff and black-rimmed glasses, Starmer remains an enigma in the eyes of many voters, who are predicted to propel him to Downing Street after Thursday's general election.

Sometimes appearing uncomfortable in the spotlight, the devoted Arsenal fan, who came to politics late in life, has struggled to shed his public image as buttoned-up and boring. But Starmer, whose wife Victoria works as an occupational therapist in the National Health Service, is said to be funny in private and loyal. The couple have two teenage children, a girl and a boy.

If elected, he has pledged to maintain his habit of not working after 6:00 pm on a Friday to spend time with them.

Personal life of Starmer:
Born on September 2, 1962, Keir Starmer was raised in a cramped house on the outskirts of London by a seriously ill mother and an emotionally distant father. He had three siblings, one of whom had learning difficulties. His parents were animal lovers who rescued donkeys.

"Whenever one of us left home, they replaced us with a donkey," Starmer has joked.

Interests and education:
A talented musician, Starmer had violin lessons at school with Norman Cook, the former Housemartins bassist who became DJ Fatboy Slim, and attended a prestigious London music school at weekends.

After legal studies at the universities of Leeds and Oxford, Starmer turned his attention to leftist causes, defending trade unions, anti-McDonald's activists and death row inmates abroad.

He is friends with human rights lawyer Amal Clooney from their time together at the same legal practice and once recounted a boozy lunch he had with her and her Hollywood actor husband George Clooney.

In 2003, he began moving towards the establishment, shocking colleagues and friends, first with a job ensuring that police in Northern Ireland complied with human rights legislation.

Five years later, he was appointed director of public prosecutions for England and Wales when Labour's Gordon Brown was prime minister.

Between 2008 and 2013, he oversaw the prosecution of MPs for abusing their expenses, journalists for phone-hacking, and young rioters involved in unrest across England.

Just weeks before he was elected, his mother died of a rare disease of the joints that had left her unable to walk for many years.

Starmer's entry intro politics:
Just a year after becoming an MP, Starmer joined a rebellion by Labour lawmakers over radical left-winger Jeremy Corbyn's perceived lack of leadership during the EU referendum campaign.

It failed, and later that year he rejoined the top team as Labour's Brexit spokesman, where he remained until succeeding Corbyn, who took the party to its worst defeat since 1935 in the last general election five years ago.

Starmer has since shown ruthlessness by moving the party back to the centre ground, purging Corbyn and rooting out anti-Semitism.

The left accuses him of betrayal for dropping a number of pledges he made during his successful leadership campaign, including the scrapping of university tuition fees.

But his strategic repositioning of Labour to put it back on a path to power is indicative of a constant throughout his life: a drive to succeed.

"If you're born without privilege, you don't have time for messing around," Starmer once said.

"You don't walk around problems without fixing them, and you don't surrender to the instincts of organisations that won't face up to change."

(with agency inputs)