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Counterterrorism police are investigating a fire at Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s north London home in the early hours of Monday morning.
The fire at the four-bedroom house, which Starmer has rented out to tenants since moving to 10 Downing Street in July last year, caused damage to the property’s entrance, the Metropolitan Police said.
“On Monday, 12 May at 01:35hrs, police were alerted by the London Fire Brigade to reports of a fire at a residential address in [Kentish Town],” the police said in a statement.
“Officers attended the scene. Damage was caused to the property’s entrance, nobody was hurt. The fire is being investigated and cordons remain in place while enquiries continue,” the force added.
Starmer’s home has been targeted by protesters in the past, including in relation to the Israel-Hamas war.
On Monday, Starmer announced a migration crackdown, warning that Britain risked becoming “an island of strangers” without further action.
A spokesperson for the prime minister on Monday said he “thanks the emergency services for their work”, but declined to comment further because of the live police investigation.
At about 6pm on Monday, the street on which Starmer’s house is located was still sealed off at both ends. Inside the cordon were police officers and a London Fire Brigade vehicle marked “Fire investigation, Working Dogs”.
The involvement of counterterrorism police, who are specialists in discerning the nature of a possible attack, is common when a high-profile property is the subject of fire damage.
The fact that the police are investigating suggests there is reason to believe the fire was started intentionally, but it is not clear at this stage whether it was an amateur protest or something much more serious.
The UK faces several threats, and the head of MI5, the domestic intelligence service, warned in October that Russian spies were on a “mission to generate mayhem” on Britain’s streets and Iran was fomenting lethal plots at “an unprecedented pace and scale”.
The London Fire Brigade described it as a “small” fire “outside a property”, which was handled by two fire engines. “The brigade was called at 01.11 and the fire was under control by 01.33,” it added.
During last year’s general election campaign, which culminated in a landslide Labour victory, Starmer moved his family into a high-end apartment owned by party donor Lord Waheed Alli, saying he wanted his son to be able to revise for his GCSE exams without distraction.
In June last year, three pro-Palestinian protesters were found guilty of public order offences after protesting outside the Starmer home two months earlier.
Rows of children’s shoes had been laid outside the Kentish Town property and a banner hung calling on Starmer to “stop the killing”, surrounded by red hand prints.
Starmer’s wife told the magistrates’ court that the protest in April 2024, when her husband was still leader of the opposition, had left her feeling “a bit sick”.
Lady Victoria Starmer said at the time that it would have looked “like a peaceful protest if it hadn’t been outside my home”.
Additional reporting by Michael O’Dwyer in London
