UK PM Starmer launches TikTok account despite government ban

In 2023, TikTok was banned on UK government devices over data security concerns linked to the app’s Chinese parent company ByteDance

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British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has launched a TikTok account, it was reported on Monday. Photo: PA Wire / dpa

Published: 1:45am, 9 Dec 2025

Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer launched a TikTok account on Monday despite the app being banned from government devices, as he attempts to connect to younger voters.

A spokesman for his office said “security mitigations” were in place to operate the Prime Minister’s account.

“TikTok, follow me,” Starmer said in the first video posted on the account, which showed him with his wife at the ceremony to switch on Downing Street’s Christmas lights.

The second video showed Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky embracing Starmer outside his residence at 10 Downing Street, before they joined France’s President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz for talks on proposals to end the war in Ukraine.

In March 2023, London banned the use of TikTok on government devices over data security concerns linked to the popular video sharing app’s Chinese parent company ByteDance.

Similar bans exist in many other Western countries.

Before that ban, an official “10 Downing Street” account was launched in May 2022, when Boris Johnson was prime minister, but it stopped posting videos just three months later.

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