Upon a Falling Starmer

British Prime Minister, Kier Starmer

As I sit here wallowing in round two of whatever 5-alarm man-cold I have, I’ve been wondering, “Who’s been having a worse few weeks?” Trump’s certainly on the list, with his attack on Senator Kelly getting rejected, failing to indict Senators Kelly and Slotkin over their comments on following unlawful orders, winding down operations in Minneapolis, the House’s rebuke on tariffs on Canadian goods, or his favorite pollster finding that people prefer Biden over Trump by a margin of 8 points, things aren’t going great.

But, I don’t think that’s the worst out of Western leaders. For that, I believe we need to turn to Keir Starmer, who, at least as of the time I’m writing this, is still the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

On paper, Starmer should be walking on sunshine. He was elected just 18 months ago with the largest parliamentary majority in decades. However, with the UK’s insistence on using a first-past-the-post system with multiple viable parties, this massive majority was obtained on just 33% of the vote. That means, even after 14 years of chaotic Conservative leadership marked by austerity, Brexit, and Covid, 2 out of 3 voters preferred another party. The electoral quirk meant that Starmer’s Labour Party won 63% of the seats on only 33% of the vote. The spiraling Conservative Party was punished, with many right-wing voters voting for the right-wing Reform UK, giving Brexit leader Nigel Farage his first seat in Parliament after decades of attempts. This right-wing vote-splitting allowed Labour to come in first in many seats they wouldn’t ordinarily win, such as Southwest Norfolk, where Labour ousted former Conservative Prime Minister Liz Truss with just 26% of the vote.

So, while Starmer may have a wide electoral victory, it wasn’t a deep one. And, I think his moderate approach to governing reflects that reality, to a point. This wasn’t like 1997 when Tony Blair won 44% of the vote or Attlee’s 50% Labour victory in 1945. However, that moderation has turned into timidity, waffling, and more U-turns than a tourist lost in London. A majority built on a third of the vote encourages caution, but caution without clarity eventually looks like he’s drifting aimlessly from crisis to crisis.

Unfortunately, Starmer’s first real test came less than a month after his election with the Southport Riots. These riots were in response to a mass stabbing that resulted in the deaths of three children. Misinformation about the attacker’s background spread faster than the government could keep up with, right-wing protesters attacking mosques under the assumption that the attacker was a Muslim immigrant, when in actuality, he was born in Wales into a family of Christian immigrants from Rwanda. While the response to the riots themselves was adequate, the vacuum of information from the government on the identity of the suspect (a convention in British law) helped fan the flames of violence. Unfortunately for Starmer, this was his moment to shine and lead the nation through chaos. Still, he performed as admirably as Biden did on the Afghanistan pullout, which is to say, poorly, and his polling, like Biden's, has never recovered. It was an early event that demanded effective communication to calm the situation, yet Number 10 appeared slow and reactive.

This inability to communicate is compounded by several high-profile policy U-turns, which, for Americans, mean rolling out a large policy and then withdrawing it after public sentiment turns against it. While this could be spun into a “listening to the people” argument, it really speaks to Number 10’s inability to sell anyone on anything. For example, he reversed course on the £28 billion annual green investment pledge, scaling back and delaying what had been presented as the engine of Labour’s industrial strategy; and on Winter Fuel Payment reductions, restoring support for pensioners after announcing cuts as part of fiscal consolidation. He backtracked on major welfare reforms, watering down proposed disability benefit changes after internal rebellion and public backlash, and on inheritance tax changes for agricultural land, diluting the policy following sustained protests from farmers and rural MPs. After months of comparisons to dictators over delays of certain local council elections, he cast aside the proposal after legal threats and political pressure, and on business rate relief for pubs, reinstating support for the hospitality sector after initially planning to withdraw it. From Digital IDs to trans rights, the list goes on, and the list of dropped policies is almost as long as the enacted ones at this point. Individually, each retreat can be defended. Collectively, they reinforce the impression of a government constantly adjusting to pressure rather than setting the terms of debate.

Therefore, Labour’s base, already skeptical due to his natural, centrist-moderation, has largely abandoned him, with younger voters supporting a meteoric Green Party in droves and older voters just sitting out. But the worst wasn’t his ineffectual governing nor communications; it has to do with Epstein.

No, Starmer himself has not been implicated, but a very high-profile Labour Party official has been. Former UK Ambassador to the United States, Peter Mandelson, had already resigned in September 2025 due to previously undisclosed connections to Jeffrey Epstein (who, I assume, anyone reading this will know, so I don’t dive into his sordid background). However, additional shocking allegations arose when the full Epstein File was released in February 2026, in which Mandelson passed sensitive British economic information to Epstein during the 2008 Financial Crisis and received payments from Epstein himself. Since this came to light, Mandelson has also resigned from the House of Lords and the Labour Party.

For Starmer, who campaigned on restoring accountability and high standards for public officials after years of scandals under Johnson, Truss, and other Conservatives, it seems to be a fatal blow. He built his premiership around restoring integrity, which makes proximity to such a massive scandal politically damaging.

All this has resulted in a party in government polling third or, at times, fourth place with over three years left in its term in office. This is simply untenable. At this point, Starmer either lacks the conviction or the ability to turn things around, so it’s not a question of IF he resigns (at the urging of the famous men in gray suits) but when. Many predict it will be after the likely disastrous local elections in May, now that they’re back on. British politics has never been shy about replacing leaders mid-term; see the last four prime ministers, all initially selected by the party rather than through a general election.  In fact, a presumed leadership challenge from Andy Burnham, the mayor of Manchester, was recently squashed.

But the one thing that could save him is splitters - and lucky for him, it’s not just on the left wing anymore. The same elements that caused the Conservative Party to lose so many seats could now hit the polling leader, Reform UK, thanks to a former Reform MP, Rupert Lowe, who was ousted over bullying allegations. Lowe has launched the not-so-creatively named Restore Britain, which advocates “full-scale restoration” rather than incremental Reforms. So, Restore is acting like a right-wing version of Corbyn’s "Your Party," advocating revolution rather than gradual change. If the right fractures again, Labour could once more benefit from division rather than devotion.  But Starmer and Labour must find their footing.

So, like a victory that wasn’t exactly of his own making, his salvation might come from the same place, a fracturing political right that is increasingly hostile.

Starmer has the seats, the title, and technically the time. What he does not currently have is momentum. A majority that large should feel like an unassailable authority pushing through wholesale reforms across a British political landscape that desperately needs it, yet now it feels like any day, Starmer could become yet another ousted Prime Minister.  If he wants to survive and be anything more than a pub trivia question, he needs to decide what this government is actually for and defend it without blinking. Otherwise, his fate may hinge less on his own strength than on whether the right continues tearing itself apart.

But, still better than the former Prince Andrew.