7 prime ministers in 10 years.. Has Britain become ungovernable? | news

Britain is preparing to welcome its seventh Prime Minister in just 10 years, in a political scene that has astonished observers at home and abroad.

What is most strange about this political transformation is that three of the recent leaders – David Cameron, Boris Johnson and Keir Starmer – announced their resignation and stepping down from power within just three years of achieving overwhelming and large parliamentary majorities.

This accelerating rate of turnover and erosion of legitimacy is unprecedented in modern British history for nearly two centuries, particularly since the violent upheavals that accompanied the Great Reform Act of 1832, which heralded the shift toward mass democracy.

This ongoing turmoil is due to successive crises monitored by international newspapers and considered to be a blatant exceptional case compared to other European countries, including Italy, which has always been known for the instability of its governments, which raises a fundamental question: Why is British politics devouring its leaders so quickly?

Years of stagnation and broken promises

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced on Monday his resignation as prime minister amid a division in the ruling Labor Party, while his rival for party leadership, Andy Burnham, was quick to confirm his intention to succeed him.

Starmer’s resignation was not only the result of political scandals, but was mainly due to his structural failure to pull Britain out of the heart of the economic recession and his reneging on his major election promises, according to an analysis published by the Washington Post.

After a historic, overwhelming victory described as the largest victory in modern British history, Starmer’s popularity declined to record lows among Western leaders. This is due to his rapid retreat, within less than 3 months of his election, from his pledge not to raise the National Insurance tax, and his imposition of new taxes such as the value-added tax on private schools, which led to raising government spending to record levels without curbing the deficit or reducing borrowing costs, which were higher than expected.

Instead of dismantling the bureaucracy that hinders construction and investment, Starmer’s government resorted to interventionist policies that the Washington Post described as “dubious state tricks” to gain temporary popularity, such as banning social media platforms for those under 16 years of age and banning smoking for future generations. These measures did not save the economy and did not prevent the harsh defeat in the recent local elections.

In conjunction with the economic decline, Starmer’s legitimacy received a fatal blow after it was revealed that he had ignored prior warnings about Peter Mandelson’s relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, and was nonetheless appointed as the United Kingdom’s ambassador to Washington.

Today, after he stepped down, Britain is preparing to receive a new prime minister, as former Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, who was elected last week in Parliament, appears to be the most likely to lead the Labor Party next month.

However, the Washington Post warns that Burnham is adopting a more interventionist approach by calling for forced pricing of goods and the nationalization of the energy and water sectors, which may be met with a violent and severe reaction from the financial markets.

Why does British politics devour its leaders?

For nearly two centuries, Britain has witnessed a state of unprecedented instability. The fall of successive leaders – even those who achieved overwhelming majorities such as Cameron, Johnson and Starmer – is not a mere coincidence, but the result of a combination of five structural factors that the Financial Times has structurally dissected:

• Britain’s exit from the European Union

Starmer’s step down came one day before the tenth anniversary of Britain’s vote to leave the European Union (Brexit), an event that caused a logistical dilemma and created popular expectations that could not be met, causing governments to waste half a decade discussing the shape of relations with Europe instead of resolving the country’s structural crises.

According to former Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt, the impact of Brexit is deeper than thought, as it stripped the Labor Party of its traditional base – the working class – in the northern regions, and in return the Conservative movement lost the support of the wealthy southern regions, paving the way for the rise of populist movements led by Nigel Farage.

In turn, expert Luke Traill confirms to the newspaper that the division in Britain today is no longer traditional between right and left, but rather has turned into an overlap of opinions that makes it difficult to build any stable coalition, as the street is divided into 60% who demand “preserving and developing institutions,” while 40% of voters see that the way out is “burning everything.”

• Members of Parliament revolted

Most prime ministers since 2016 have been undermined by their own party MPs. During the Brexit crisis, MPs used to build independent coalitions to achieve specific goals and felt less obliged to support their party’s agenda as a result of the separate democratic referendum.

In practice, the European Research Group bloc, which is a group of Eurosceptic representatives, succeeded in pressuring successive leaders and established a model for others, which deepened the idea that the prime minister is “replaceable” at any time, even if he has a large parliamentary majority.

WhatsApp groups contributed to facilitating political planning and conspiracies among the backbenchers, while party leaders failed to adapt to this new situation and continued to practice politics in a traditional manner compared to the modern style followed by the representatives.

• Individual errors

No British Prime Minister since 2016 has succeeded in managing the challenges, as Cameron caused the referendum, Theresa May torpedoed her authority with early elections and a bad campaign, personal scandals and rallies at the time of (Covid-19) toppled Johnson, and Liz Terrace caused the market to collapse due to her economic recklessness, while Rishi Sunak failed to present a convincing goal.

As for Starmer, his mistakes were summed up in making unrealistic promises and his inability to make decisive and difficult political decisions, such as the defense spending issue.

Commentators compare this failure to the flexibility and solidity of other leaders, such as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.

Accordingly, Trail rejects – as quoted by the Financial Times – the statement that Britain has become an ungovernable country, stressing that the crisis lies in leaders who committed grave fundamental mistakes that would have been enough to overthrow them in any previous era.

Britain has not recovered from the financial crisis and its growth has become slower than rich countries due to the large size of its financial sector. Paul Johnson, former director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, believes that the economy is the main driver of politics, and that voters have become fed up because their living conditions have not improved for nearly 20 years.

Successive prime ministers focused on increasing spending to treat the symptoms of the problems instead of confronting their causes and enacting real reforms that stimulate growth, which caused incomes to stabilize and exacerbated a living crisis resulting from stubborn inflation since 2022 and the pressures of population aging.

Since 2010, British public debt has risen at a record speed, tripling as a share of gross domestic product, and the cost of servicing it has doubled twice. Despite taxes reaching a record level, one pound out of every 12 pounds collected by the state goes only to pay debt interest, ensuring that the street remains disaffected with anyone in power.

• “Netflix phenomenon”

The rise of platforms such as X and Facebook brought about a fundamental change and transformed politics into a product tailored to the voter’s demand, as the newspaper likened this phenomenon to the Netflix platform.

This situation has helped in the rise of the politics of “personalization” and digital charisma, but it carries a big trap, because the leader loses the peak of his popularity after the first day in power and it is difficult to rally people behind him based on popularity alone.

The newspaper says that Burnham, who is almost certain to succeed Starmer, has an affable and humble personality, thanks in part to his social media posts about football.