Starmer’s resignation from the position of Prime Minister further complicates the British scene

Keir Starmer recently announced his resignation from the position of leader of the British Labor Party, and thus from the position of Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

In the end, and despite his repeated assurances that he would continue what he described as “the struggle,” the pressure on Starmer became too great to bear, after the landslide victory achieved by the former Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, in the party’s by-elections that took place in the Makerfield constituency.

Starmer thus becomes the sixth British Prime Minister to step down from office in 10 years.

The immediate reason for his decision was the final collapse of the support he had within the party and in the Cabinet, which became clear in private conversations that took place over the past weekend.

In presenting his plans, Starmer avoided the massive wave of resignations that brought down previous “Tory” prime ministers, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss.

The general goal appears to be to achieve a more orderly and “dignified” transition, compared to the transitions that occurred under recent “conservative” governments.

However, his emotional statement reviewing his time as prime minister still highlights a leader who realizes he has failed.

Starmer was unpopular even the day before he took office.

Lowest level

On the eve of the 2024 general elections, his satisfaction rate, according to an Ipsos poll, reached the lowest levels.

This was the lowest historical level for a new British Prime Minister. While 31% of the public expressed their satisfaction with his performance, 52% expressed their dissatisfaction, and it is the first time that a leader has obtained a parliamentary majority while enjoying a significantly negative approval rating.

However, in light of the prevailing British political atmosphere since the referendum to leave the European Union, or what is known as “Brexit”, these numbers did not seem strange at all, as Starmer’s predecessor, Rishi Sunak, entered the 2024 election campaign with a much worse satisfaction rate.

At the time, many in Britain believed that Starmer would likely see a surge in his popularity, after he had effectively achieved a victory for the Labor Party after 14 long years.

In 1997, Tony Blair enjoyed a record-breaking “honeymoon” period, as satisfaction rates with him rose dramatically in the months following his victory.

Even David Cameron saw his approval ratings jump shortly after forming the coalition in 2010.

majority

The position of prime minister in Britain usually lends an aura of competence to its new occupant, and Starmer’s popularity did improve, but only with a kind of tepid neutrality. In the immediate aftermath of the election, his approval rating rose in the first Opinium poll conducted after the election, while the YouGov poll recorded a similarly rapid recovery to an acceptable level.

In contrast to the constant euphoria of the Blair years, Starmer was able to win over the British public, before things turned again.

At the same time, given the size of his majority, he seemed to be in an untouchable position, yet the same could have been said of Boris Johnson.

In the wake of the 2019 election, there was talk of the Conservatives having “10 years of dominance”, with the structural rearrangement of the Red Wall said to have created a near-permanent Conservative majority that would keep Labor out of power until the 2030s.

But in the end, Johnson was out of office after just over three years, and there was now talk of the Conservative Party’s extinction.

Fragile progress

Where did Starmer go wrong? Ironically, the answer to this question may lie in the fate of his predecessor as leader of the Labor Party, as Jeremy Corbyn’s record now appears similar to Starmer’s.

Between 2017 and 2019, Corbyn’s personal popularity declined sharply, from a competitive level during the 2017 campaign to a disastrous level by the time of his defeat in 2019.

By then, the bonds that once held his coalition together had collapsed under the pressure of Brexit.

Starmer’s rise and fall took roughly the same period of time, and happened for several reasons that are difficult for both sides of the ideological divide within the Labor Party to acknowledge.

In the periods 2017-2019 and 2022-2024, the fragile progress of the “Labour” Party in the opinion polls was not driven by enthusiasm towards the opposition, as much as it was driven by the collapse of the efficiency of the “Conservative” government.

The “landslide victory” data in 2024 showed that the Labor Party obtained about 64% of the seats with only 34% of the votes, which is the lowest percentage obtained by any majority government in history.

pressure

Just as Corbyn came under pressure from the right-wing populist Brexit Party and the centrist pro-EU Liberal Democrats in 2019 over his moderate stance on Brexit, Starmer faced similar pressure in the mid-2010s.

On the one hand, Reform UK undermined the votes of the Labor Party in its traditional strongholds, and on the other hand, the Green Party and independents succeeded in targeting progressives in the cities, and the Green Party ended up quadrupling the number of its representatives in 2024, while independent candidates achieved historic victories in the strongholds of the Labor Party.

The electoral results of the Labor Party during its rule reflected this, through its loss in the by-elections to the Reform and Green parties, the disastrous results in the local elections in England, and its failure to overthrow the Scottish National Party, which is experiencing difficulties and facing scandals.

Ironically, this latest resignation came almost 10 years after the 2016 Brexit referendum.

There is no doubt that the partisan divisions that arose and became entrenched as a result of the moment Britain left the European Union, are still at the heart of British politics, even if many have forgotten the details of that dispute.

About “The Conversation”

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Primary variable

British professor Tim Bell considered that the best way to look at British politics is to consider it as an example of polarization between two blocs. Voters are confined to broad camps based on identity, and the position on Britain’s exit from the European Union is the primary variable behind this.

However, this fact is obscured by the fact that these blocs are internally divided, and only in rare cases address the issue directly.

Although voters may sometimes unite in the face of a common enemy, they remain deeply divided on other aspects of politics, leaving leaders like Keir Starmer or Jeremy Corbyn trying to hold together a fragile coalition like a sand castle that collapses at high tide.

. Starmer failed to transform the parliamentary majority into stable popular legitimacy.

. Pressures within the Labor Party and a decline in popularity ended Starmer’s career two years after he came to power.