Sir Keir Starmer reveals death of his brother Nick hit him ‘like a bus’ as he opens up about grief on TOWIE star Pete Wicks’ podcast

Sir Keir Starmer held back tears as he addressed his brother’s death in an emotional podcast interview with reality TV star Pete Wicks.

His younger brother Nick Starmer died on Boxing Day last year, aged 60. He was fighting lung cancer.

The Prime Minister was fiercely protective of his brother, who has learning difficulties and the Labor leader was ‘dealt a very different set of cards’.

Sir Keir spoke emotionally about his pain, which he said “hit him like a bus” on Pete Wicks’ Man Made podcast, which focuses on modern masculinity and men’s mental health.

The Prime Minister revealed that he was at his brother’s side when doctors told him his cancer was terminal and Sir Keir had to explain what it meant because he “didn’t really know if he would understand”.

She said: ‘I didn’t want him to find out the diagnosis on his own as he was so vulnerable because I didn’t know he would fully understand it.

‘I didn’t know how he would react so I insisted on going with him to the hospital to be with him and actually watched his face when he was told he had terminal cancer.’

Keir Starmer’s brother Nick died aged 60 on Boxing Day last year.

Recorded at 10 Downing Street, Prime Minister explains his brother’s death to reality TV star Pete Wicks

The Prime Minister added that he wanted to ‘talk’ to his brother ‘to make sure he is fully understood’ about the diagnosis and what the consequences will be in terms of how it will affect his life.

During the last two years of Nick’s life Sir Keir would make regular trips to Leeds to see his brother in hospital.

But he refused to speak publicly about his brother’s illness and never tried to exploit it for political gain.

Sir Keir tells Pete Wicks he wants to ‘protect’ [Nick] first of all,’ he said, and decided to keep his hospital visits secret.

He said: ‘When she got cancer I decided that first and foremost I would protect her, so I wouldn’t talk about it outside my family.’

To avoid detection, he was secretly smuggled into the hospital’s intensive care unit ‘through back drains, elevators and staircases’.

‘I burst through a strange door, spent time with my brother, and left the hospital again. “Nobody knew I was there,” he said.

An emotional Sir Keir said he went to visit Nick a week before his death and knew it “could be the last time”. [he] I saw it’.

He said: ‘I could see he was in a very bad way and I knew what the diagnosis was but I was holding it back. I definitely wouldn’t let anyone know this was happening.

‘So I knew he was going to die and when I saw him probably just before Christmas I knew in my heart of hearts that it might be the last time I saw him but I didn’t quite understand it.’

‘And when he died on Boxing Day, even though this was coming for 18 months, it hit me like a bus; He knocked me out, he’s really hard to beat because he’s my little brother and I’ve seen what he’s been through and how he’s struggled in life.

‘He had done too much to bear the struggle.’

Describing his brother Nick (pictured), Sir Keir said that although he didn’t have a lot of money, he had “incredible kindness and a willingness to do anything for other people”.

The Labor leader admitted he struggled to find ‘space’ to grieve following the death of his brother, while also serving as Prime Minister.

He said: ‘I’m in the public sphere. I’m not trying to be self-important, but you have to be there.

‘People read everything you say or do all kinds of things.

‘That’s the hardest part of my job, when it’s something very personal and you just need space.

‘Especially with grief, in my view. But there’s still really no room. And it is quite difficult. “It’s very difficult, extremely difficult.”

Describing his brother, Sir Keir said that although he did not have a lot of money, he had “incredible kindness and a willingness to do anything for other people”.

The Prime Minister admitted he had ‘never done therapy’ before praising his wife Vic and describing her as an ‘absolute rock and a brick’.

He ‘won’t let me be Prime Minister’ and ‘will only let me be a father, adding that he is very lucky to have two teenage boys who viciously attack me and laugh at me all the time.’

‘They are the first to embarrass me, laugh at me or play me video clips of things I’ve said or done,’ Sir Keir said.

‘They’ll do anything they can to laugh at me or laugh with me. And that’s great. “Just as it should be.”

Sir Keir was Nick’s best man when he got engaged to his girlfriend. Prime Minister pictured with family Jo and Rod Starmer on his wedding day to Victoria

The Prime Minister also has two sisters, Anna and Katy (Nick’s twin), and a recent biography of Sir Keir has revealed details of the Starmers’ upbringing in Oxted, Surrey.

Written by former Labor Party adviser and journalist Tom Baldwin, the book described how Nick had difficulties giving birth and his subsequent difficulties learning.

Sir Keir said: ‘Nick has been dealt many different cards to me and has had problems throughout his life; Problems I’ve never had to face. ‘I admire him for that, not even though his life has gone in a different direction than mine.’

He told how his parents instilled in Sir Keir and his sisters the idea that people should be respected for what they had overcome.

‘I remember my dad saying to me over and over again, ‘Nick has been as successful as you, Keir.’