Why hopes for Keir Starmer’s UK Labour government curdled to disappointment
The UK Labour government is floundering and the knives are being sharpened behind Sir Keir Starmer’s back.
Keir Starmer led Britain’s Labour Party to power with a landslide victory of epic proportions in July 2024. The party won 411 out of 650 seats in the House of Commons, securing a majority of 174. The Conservatives were routed, losing 251 seats: their most devastating defeat. Rarely has a new government won such emphatic support.
A year on, the hope and optimism that manifested in Starmer’s extraordinary win has curdled to disappointment. The party’s standing has fallen so far that it is attracting the support of only 20 per cent of voters in the polls.
Starmer, wooden in communicating and managerial in governing, has proven to be a huge disappointment.
The far-right populist Reform UK party led by Nigel Farage is attracting significant support from voters – 29 per cent according to the latest YouGov poll published in The Times this week – and is well ahead of all other parties. He is being talked about as the next prime minister. Farage, ever the populist showman, is doing nothing to quell such speculation.
Farage was once widely regarded as a rabble-rousing fool and serial loser who failed seven times to be elected to the Commons and as engineer of the disastrous Brexit, but his party could emerge with the most seats at the next election. Reform UK holds only five seats now but, with first-past-the-post voting, winning a big seat haul cannot be dismissed.
Reform UK, while trading on fear, nativism and xenophobia, and railing against so-called elites, is well ahead of both Labour and the Conservatives.
The establishment party of Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher is as existentially challenged as its antipodean Liberal counterpart in Australia, earning just 17 per cent support in the latest polls.
Hostility towards immigration and refugees, concern over crime, alongside identity and cultural issues, are fuelling backlash against Labour and are the main causes of support for Reform UK. I have visited London three times in the past five years, and the fear that many Britons share over phone snatching, knife crime and street violence is palpable. The country is polarised and divided.
Farage’s fringe party is not only attracting disaffected Conservative voters but also making inroads into Labour’s traditional supporters too. We are witnessing voter dealignment as traditional party loyalty bleeds to minor parties, with voters feeling the major parties no longer represent or understand them.
Starmer also has a stability and competence problem. His 10 Downing St office has been overhauled several times and he lost chief of staff Sue Gray. Internal party fights have led to backflips on issues such as cutting winter fuel payments for pensioners. Two months ago, Chancellor Rachel Reeves was in tears in the Commons, after a backlash over a push to cut welfare and Starmer refusing to guarantee she would remain in her job.
Labour also has been rocked by scandals and has lost two key figures, deputy prime minister Angela Rayner and Britain’s ambassador to the US, Peter Mandelson, in as many weeks. Rayner, seen as a future leader, quit over underpaying stamp duty on property and breaching the ministerial code. Mandelson, a former Blair and Brown era minister, resigned over links to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The mood within Labour is so grim that there is talk of a leadership challenge to Starmer. Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester and a former minister, has left the door open to returning to Westminster in a by-election for that purpose. It underscores Starmer’s lack of authority in his own party.
Starmer, a former director of public prosecutions who became Labour leader in April 2020, was regarded as intelligent and capable but not with the charisma of a Tony Blair. Starmer, from the party’s left, earned plaudits for turning Labour back to the political centre, reforming the organisation and purging it of remnant supporters of toxic ultra-left leader Jeremy Corbyn.
His pitch to voters was a mix of old and new Labour, promising to be both pro-employees and pro-employers, lift wages and grow the economy. There would be no increase to income taxes but private schools would be taxed, the House of Lords would be reformed and voting age lowered to 16, education and health were priorities, alongside climate change and transport, and more rights for workers.
But Starmer has not firmly established his principles and priorities for governing in the minds of voters. Moreover, while there have been new trade agreements, investments in health and education and improvements to finances, high energy and grocery bills and housing costs mean voters still feel squeezed. A migrant return deal with France has been blocked by the High Court.
Delivery is essential. As Blair identified when I interviewed him last year, voter grievances cannot be ignored. “The only way to prevent populism is to solve the grievance,” he said. “Usually, populists don’t invent problems; they just exploit them.”
Labour’s election was also a response to the chaos, disunity and dysfunction that defined the Conservatives in power after David Cameron. They cycled through the earnest but ineffective Theresa May, the bumbling and clownish Boris Johnson, the truly moronic Liz Truss, who did not last longer than a lettuce, and then the intelligent but overwhelmed Rishi Sunak before cascading to defeat.
Brexit also has made Starmer’s job much tougher. The pound lost value, there are critical skills shortages, increased business regulations, supply chain and border delays. The cost of living went up, even before the global post-pandemic inflationary surge. The much vaunted Brexit benefits turned out to be a mirage. Immigration reached its highest levels after Brexit.
It is not unusual for prime ministers to make foreign policy their focus. So it has been with Starmer, who rather deftly hosted Donald Trump on his visit to Britain this week.
Starmer has been a strong supporter of Ukraine against Russian aggression. Britain will recognise Palestine as a state this coming week. And it is leading global action on reducing carbon emissions.
But in the end, voters judge a government on its performance at home. And on that measure Starmer and Labour are floundering. A general election is not due until 2029, however, and a huge majority provides an opportunity to advance a strong policy agenda. There is time to turn it around. But, behind Starmer’s back, the knives are being sharpened.
More Coverage
To join the conversation, please log in. Don't have an account? Register
Join the conversation, you are commenting as Logout