Labour defends Starmer’s legal advice to Hizb ut-Tahrir after Tory attack

Labour has defended Sir Keir Starmer’s decision to advise the soon-to-be-banned Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir during his legal career after Rishi Sunak used the case as an attack line against the Opposition leader.

It is a “fundamental principle” of the justice system that lawyers represent people with whose views they do not necessarily agree, the party said.

During a noisy exchange at Prime Minister’s Questions, Mr Sunak accused Sir Keir of having acted for the group, which the UK Government is now planning to ban as a terror organisation, while he worked as a prominent barrister.

A Labour spokesman later said that the party leader had been asked to give advice to Hizb ut-Tahri in a legal dispute between the group and the German government.

He did not formally represent them, moving on to become director of public prosecutions shortly after, they said.

“The nature of being a lawyer is that you represent and give advice to a whole range of clients including people that you don’t agree with,” the spokesman added.

Mr Sunak’s remarks, along with a Tory poster published later which read: “Are you a terrorist in need of legal advice? Better call Keir”, suggest the criticism could feature prominently in Conservative campaigning during an election year.

A post from the Conservatives on X, formerly Twitter, also said: “When @RishiSunak sees a group chanting jihad on our streets, he bans them. Keir Starmer invoices them.”

Challenged over whether the Prime Minister believes Sir Keir’s legal career is a reasonable line of attack, Mr Sunak’s press secretary told reporters he “opted to go and represent these people”.

“If Keir Starmer wasn’t leader of the opposition, he’d be representing a lot of these people still today,” she said.

“Keir Starmer’s not shy in raising his own record as DPP (Director of Public Prosecutions), but it seems when anyone else points to any bits of his record that are less favourable, he says: ‘It wasn’t me’ or: ‘It wasn’t my fault.’

“So from time to time we’ve all had one of those bosses who takes credit for the success and is more than happy to dump on everyone else on the bad stuff.”

It was put to her that when the Labour leader provided legal advice to Hizb ut-Tahrir, the group was not designated a terror organisation in the UK.

She replied: “No, but they clearly are now. And if you look back at the comments they were making at the time, they were pretty unsavoury.”

The press secretary also said: “I don’t run the Conservative Twitter account.”

Home Secretary James Cleverly has moved to proscribe Hizb ut-Tahrir by putting an order before Parliament which would make joining the organisation illegal in the UK under terror laws.

Labour has welcomed the plan, with shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper saying there had “long been serious concerns” about the group,

In a statement, Hizb ut-Tahrir Britain denied it is antisemitic or encourages terrorism and said it will challenge the proposed proscription “using all available legal means”.