Keir Starmer’s decision to step down as the U.K.’s prime minister will come as a relief to many Britons, including many in the Labour Party.
To be fair, Starmer’s fall has been from a height that was something of an illusion. Labour’s electoral triumph in July 2024 was less than it seemed. Years of Conservative infighting and incompetence had meant that the election was Labour’s to win. It did so, but with just over a third of the vote, barely more than it managed in the 2019 election. Labour’s huge parliamentary majority owes a great deal to the way in which Britain’s first-past-the-post electoral system punished a right wing divided between Nigel Farage’s ascendant Reform UK and the flailing Tory party.
Labour was therefore never as popular as its impressive haul of parliamentary seats appeared to show. It sank in the polls within months, as the forces of political gravity took their toll. These were sped on their way by darkening economic clouds, Starmer’s grim indifference to his more sensible election promises, and the prime minister’s own style, leaden and authoritarian.
With his decision to exit, there has been some rose-tinted commentary about Starmer’s “decency.” That may be true of Starmer the man. We are not in a position to know. It is not, however, true of Starmer the politician. The government he led indulged in class warfare of the most spiteful kind. To take one example, under Starmer, the U.K. has become the only country in Europe to impose a standard-rate VAT on private school fees. That is bad enough, but to impose a tax hike that some parents (and thus some schools) could not afford in the middle of the school year was an exercise in cruelty.
Starmer’s government was infected by authoritarianism, perhaps most notoriously demonstrated in his obvious fondness for online censorship, curious in someone who rose to prominence as a “human rights” lawyer until it is understood that his notion of human rights was based on the ideas of a radicalized “centrism.” This ideology (and variants even further to the left) has been metastasizing for decades throughout the British establishment, even during periods of Conservative-led government. It has little tolerance for any dissent unless, as in the case of certain strains of environmentalism, it serves its purposes. To understand Starmer’s relationship with this ideology and its power structure is also to understand how, as a lawyer, Starmer was able to embrace Britain’s infamous “two-tier” justice system, a disgrace that had preceded him, but which served him well.
The conventional wisdom is that Prime Minister Starmer was a politician with no real plans or purpose. That is not so. While Starmer has been an apparatchik for all seasons (he supported Jeremy Corbyn when it was convenient to do so, only to distance himself later), his take on what the center-left should be appears to be genuine enough. By that measure, his government has been successful enough. Britain’s big government has grown bigger, free speech’s domain has grown smaller, private schools are fewer (the money raised was never the point), the long march of the left through the institutions has continued, and multiculturalism and “net-zero” trundle destructively along.
Is there anything for which Starmer deserves praise? Well, he has (sometimes) talked a good game on defense but has too often failed to accept the trade-offs necessary to fund it. This is in marked contrast to his dogged determination to proceed with the handover (and leaseback) of the Chagos Islands, a now-paused plan that demonstrated how a nutty variant of postcolonial guilt weighed more heavily with Starmer than did his country’s security interests. His views and priorities are what they are.
On immigration (heavily sold as an accomplishment), there has indeed been some improvement, but the gross influx remains grotesquely high and the question of how to respond to the presence of the millions who have already arrived continues to be a toxic question. The belief that censoring or otherwise “reeducating” Britons should not form any part of the answer is not one shared by Starmer and his party.
Starmer lacks the skills necessary to persuade the electorate that, contrary to the evidence, the country is on the right track, whether economically or socially. Even though a general election need not be called for another three years, Labour’s collapse in the polls has panicked its MPs. They have increasingly been looking for a better salesman, if not for a shift in the government’s overall direction except perhaps further leftward.
The best bet (for now) is that the party will entrust Andy Burnham, a smooth-talking Labour highflier who became mayor of Greater Manchester, with that distinctly tricky task. The political honeymoon that he or any other new leader will enjoy is likely to be short-lived, although doubtless there are some tactical retreats that could be used to extend it, perhaps before calling a snap election before the onset of the fiscal reckoning that is likely to be one of Starmer’s most memorable legacies.
In the meantime, there will be an interlude in which Starmer remains in 10 Downing Street until the selection of his successor. This might take until September, leaving Britain in the care of the lamest of lame ducks at a treacherous time. The worst of Starmer may still lie ahead.