‘No sense of direction’: The downfall of decent but despised Keir Starmer
The British prime minister took office at a challenging time, but critics accuse him of weakness and poor judgement. Keir Starmer is regarded even by
The British prime minister took office at a challenging time, but critics accuse him of weakness and poor judgement. Keir Starmer is regarded even by his opponents as a decent man, hardworking and courteous, and yet he has become the most disliked British prime minister since modern political polling began. Starmer led the United Kingdom’s Labour Party to a landslide general election victory in July 2024, winning 411 seats in the House of Commons, a majority of 174. It was the third highest haul of seats achieved by Labour after Tony Blair’s landslides in 1997 and 2001. The UK, he told a jubilant crowd back then, had an opportunity “to get its future back”. But there were warning signs. His victory was achieved with just a 34 percent share of the vote. On Monday, he resigned as prime minister. “Every decision I have taken has been about putting the country I love first. That is why I will resign as leader of the Labour Party,” he said. A former top lawyer, Starmer ran the Crown Prosecution Service for years and was known as methodical and process-driven. A relative novice to politics, he ascended to the helm of the Labour Party after Jeremy Corbyn in 2020 after only five years in the House of Commons. But Labour’s relatively limited popularity after the 2024 vote began to plunge quickly, along with Starmer’s approval ratings. “He did not define what he believed in and what the Labour Party believed in. He does not have a narrative, a story on what his long-term objectives are, what he wants and (had) no sense of direction,” John Curtice, professor of politics at the University of Strathclyde and the UK’s most respected pollster, told Al Jazeera. “Starmer is a very clever lawyer. What he seems to lack is political antennas and the presence of a leader.” Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London, recently described Starmer to Al Jazeera as a “poor communicator and one who messed up his first few months in office”.
He lacked a vision “to inspire either his MPs or the public”, he added. An unpopular leader A year into the job, according to the polling company Ipsos, net satisfaction with Starmer had plummeted to minus 66, “the lowest satisfaction rating recorded by Ipsos for any prime minister going back to 1977”, the pollster said. It has barely improved since then and is currently around minus 60. Seventy-six percent of people are dissatisfied with Starmer and just 16 percent are favourable. Even his Conservative predecessor Liz Truss, whose political longevity of 49 days was mocked as having a shorter shelf life than a lettuce, only fell as low as minus 51 in Ipsos polling. Starmer became prime minister at a challenging time after more than a decade of Conservative rule. Britons were grappling with a cost of living crisis, overstretched government finances and full prisons. From the start, Starmer had difficult decisions to make. For decades, Labour has tried to shake an image that it is reckless with the economy and pursues a ta and-spend strategy, in contrast with the Conservatives, who claim to be the party of low taxation and fiscal responsibility. “Starmer’s governing project was to turn the Labour Party into the new Conservative Party,” said Oliver Eagleton, author of The Starmer Project: A Journey to the Right. As the Conservatives rebranded themselves as a populist party appealing to the working class during Brexit under Boris Johnson, the centre ground was vacated, and Starmer “pledged to occupy that centre ground and consolidate the state”, he said. Identity crisis, scandals and electoral losses But some felt the rebranded Labour Party lacked a defined political identity and its leader the political instinct to command loyalty on the backbenches. Starmer, an Oxford University graduate born to a nurse and toolmaker, was accused of being overly cautious and indecisive despite his strong parliamentary majority.
The BriefWire